Release
by InuyashaPHB
Summary: Several years after the events of Control, Patrick must come to terms with his powers, and their devious source.
1. Prologue

"Strange… orphans don't get visitors," mused Cliff, a now very perplexed, groundskeeper. The haggard old man's boney fingers ran along his cheeks to his chin where they rasped against his ghost-white five-o'clock shadow. A mystery stood before his old eyes. One in the form of a single, snipped, vibrant blue tulip; its dew-dropped petals delicately wilting from exposure.

Cliff had been groundskeeper for Jump City's cemetery for nigh a half-century. In his time, he had come to know each headstone as if it were the person for whom it was placed. Each grave had its own rotation of visitors that could be expected.

But this slab of cheaply-made stone, for all of the three years it had been present in the cemetery, hadn't been so much as breathed on by anyone other than Cliff. In fact, were it not for his hard work as groundskeeper, the entirety of the plot would be lost to vines and lichen. Perhaps it was for this lack of outside attention that Cliff had taken a shine to this tombstone, even to the child it was placed as a monument for. He would remember her, even if the world had so carelessly moved on. Though, thought Cliff, it seemed that the world hadn't quite forgotten after all.

"Well Sam, looks like you have yourself a secret admirer," the old man groaned out as he bent over to retrieve the flower. His joints seemed to pop and stutter in protest, but Cliff was a tenacious man, not yet ready to accept the limitations that age had placed on him. He picked up the tulip, admiring the depth and vibrancy of its color, and walked with it towards his idling truck on the cemetery drive. He returned a minute later with a small vase and a now-trimmed tulip sitting in the nutrient-rich water within.

"There," said Cliff's raspy voice, "That oughta last a bit longer." The deep care in his voice bled through as he placed the vase gently on the ground and stepped back to regard his work. The powerful blue of the tulip seemed to stand in defiance to the uniformly grey slab that towered over it. It was a change for the better. Cliff regarded the tombstone now illuminated in the orange-red hues of sunrise.

"Here lies Samantha Garrison," he read aloud softly, his weary and pained eyes paused. He knew the epitaph. He read it every time he came to Sam's grave. He knew it by heart. But the tulip, now standing in the foreground, seemed to give the words a new-found bite. "No jewel is as perfect as the innocence of childhood," Cliff finished with a sniffle for tears that would never come. Stoically, he turned and shuffled slowly away from Sam's grave, got in his truck, and left for the rest of his rounds.


	2. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE  
**

About 50 miles north of Jump City proper, the bustle of urban life will give way to a yawning mass of evergreen forest, the tendrils of which stretch out from even further north, as if to beg the would-be adventurer to come explore. Protected by a generous donation from the Martha Wayne Foundation, this not-so-far-flung expanse of pristine wilderness hadn't been touched by any industry, spare photography, for decades.

People spoke of certain meadows singing with the rising of the sun, but two years in and Patrick was ready to call that a load of rubbish. He laid silently on his back while taking in the cherub sounds of birds flitting about, overlaid with a gentle flapping of his nylon home in the breeze. It had been some time since Patrick could say he was at ease, but mornings like this were the closest he had come yet.

He sat up and stretched with a groan, a human mirror to the sounds of the redwoods and firs outside, as they strained against the persistent, gentle wind. The zipper on the front of his tent clinked lightly against itself as he reached to grab it. With an exaggerated sound, the metal mesh parted into a doorway and Patrick stepped through.

From the muted cobalt-blue of his tent, the world transformed at the threshold to a myriad of greens and browns. Patrick was surrounded in an ocean of subtle movement. On the massive trees around him, each pine needle on the branches bristled independently and flowed with the air currents. The trunks creaked as they too leaned to accommodate Mother Nature's consistent pressure. In the waning hours of dawn, the light from in the eastern sky was sliced and diced by the maze of shapes that the trees all cast, leaving the ground a mat of tiny geodesic shards that undulated with the weather. In the distance, barely audible among the immediate sounds of birds and breezes, there was the constant pounding sound of the ocean.

Patrick let his bare feet explore the damp floor of old pine needles and mosses. As it disturbed the surface, he was rewarded with the sweet smell of composting earth. Morning like this made his isolation bearable. He filled his lungs to bursting with the fresh air of the new day and sighed with extreme contentment. With a leisurely stride, he set of west towards the coast through the overgrown brush.

It hadn't always been this easy, Patrick thought as he was walking among the trees. True, he had thought once that his years of living on the streets of Jump City had prepared him to live anywhere. He chuckled, reflecting back on the headstrong young man that had first wandered out to these forest two years ago. That Patrick was so sure of himself; certain that living homeless in the wild was the same as living homeless anywhere. It took about a week without food and little water to melt that delusion away expertly. Gone were the days when he could nick food from busy restaurants. His new reality required dutiful planning and wise consumption. It was nothing like his times winging it on the streets.

But what Patrick always found himself marveling at, in all this time alone, was how malleable time itself seemed to be. On sunny days like today, when his reserves were full of food and his fresh water plentiful, an entire day could evaporate in what felt like an hour. But those first nights, when Patrick was alone and starving in the tent, the time ticked away at a seemingly geologic pace. But for now, at least, it seemed that the hardest times were over, and Patrick was better for having endured them and survived.

As he walked, the thick brush and trees began to yield to more and more rock. The pulsating sounds of the tides grew louder as Patrick soldiered on. The cool stone was a welcome change of texture for Patrick's feet. From here, the walking would get easier.

At long last, after a twenty-minute hike, Patrick found himself staring off an abrupt cliff into the ocean pounding the rocks below. This was his favorite place these days. Something about the landscape of grass and rock falling away to the ocean's eternal grind stuck Patrick. He felt like he identified with the land, constantly at odds with the relentless waves, slowly eroding with each encounter until nothing is left but powder and frothing violence. So too, Patrick thought, was his life like this. He walked casually to the crumbling edge, sat down among the sparse grasses, and closed his eyes.

There she was, right on cue. Two piercing violet eyes staring back at him from the inky darkness.


	3. Chapter 2

He hadn't even said goodbye. And yet, there was never any judgment, or malice; no hint of abandonment, or of strife. Hers was a look of accepting patience. Even in this, the depths of Patrick's self, enshrouded in Vantablack, the indigo still danced and refracted as marvelously as the real thing. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, perhaps it was a coping mechanism for his isolation, he could not say. But there, at the intersection of self-loathing and rage, he found her one day. And since then, she had never left.

Truth be told, when he first saw her in his head, Patrick figured his isolation had driven him to madness. But as seasons progressed, and the loneliness grew more solemn, the fact that she was merely a figment of his imagination seemed less relevant. Where once the peril of daily meditation meant throwing himself headlong into a gaping maw of grim-dark, now he had at least something familiar to look forward to. Her graceful gaze oversaw all of Patrick's struggles. When the dual demons of sloth and apathy reared their heads, it was Raven's eyes that kept Patrick grounded. When faced with the killing fields of his own violent deeds, Raven was there to lift him up from despair. Never cruel, always understanding. Patrick marveled at them for as long as he could, but eventually, they blinked shut and were simply gone. She'd be back next time he reached inside, encouraging Patrick to try again. But, by now, both she and he knew what was coming.

Experience granted Patrick greater ease with peeling back the layers of his mind, but the ordeal never failed to be a jarring one. He focused. From the corners of the corners of his periphery, small orange flecks popped into existence, hanging motionless, suspended above the indistinguishable ground. With these spots, the serene black of Patrick's mind became immediately disrupted. A cruel wind began to pick up, furnace-hot and battering Patrick incessantly from arbitrarily changing directions. The tiny orbs of orange-red danced on the aggressive machinations of the wind. Steadily the gusts picked up in intensity and temperature. So too did the dancing lights become more erratic, silently smacking into one another aloft this tumultuous air. Would any two specks meet, four would be born of the collision.

It was always fire. In short order, the blast furnace-fueled mitosis left Patrick's mind entirely engulfed in conflagration. There was a time when Patrick would have run from this, but by now he knew his fate was the same either way. The ethereal flame hissed and popped with a strange cruelty, snaking long arms of rolling flame out at random, indiscriminately consuming the darkness as it washed over, and leaving yet more embers in its wake. Patrick, for his life of manipulating fire, was still no exception to the ravenous appetite of the inferno. With each brush of the caustic mass, the flame would devour the contacted flesh, burning blue-white with a loud sizzling sound, clear to the bone. Each time Patrick would involuntarily scream out in horrific agony... until his tongue went the way of his flesh. The reaching arms of the flames seemed to only grow larger, more intense. The air burned Patrick's lungs as he attempted to inhale. Vast arms of fire seemed to be zeroing in on him having consumed all of the darkness around. Vast swaths of skin ignited by the transient flame. Patrick's body collapsed as his skeleton became more exposed, unable to support himself anymore. Soon too, even the eyes would go, and everything would again fade back to black.

But the pain persisted. He had no flesh, sinew, or nerve, yet he could still intimately feel every bit of the burning as it was still consuming his charred skeleton. Despite being wracked with transcendent agony, he was unable to so much as move. His form remained stalk-still in a crumpled heap while he, fully aware of the burning world around him, lay exposed to its ravages. The heat only grew as Patrick felt the marrow of his bones pop and fizzle, boiling inside. A cracking sensation shot up Patrick's legs and arms, through his spine. The bones began to succumb to the ever-increasing fire and the marrow was vaporizing on contact with the outside world, free from their calcium pressure cookers. Unending, the fire burned hotter and hotter, bringing Patrick to new plateaus of sheer horror. It was only when his bone was reduced to fine ash that the pain finally stopped.

This was his wrath unabated. His fire and his power, they came from this monster in his mind that consumed all it touched. Through years, he had slain countless personal demons, coming out a better person for it, but still, wrath endured. His blood lust, the joy he felt from killing evil was a feted bastard child of this sin. It was the warping of his righteous fury into something perverse and cataclysmic. Even as his body began to become his own to control again, and the world of the mind faded from perception, he could feel it, worming through him with a seething hate.

Patrick's eyes opened on the material plane and the cliff side came into sharp focus. It had been several hours at least, he assumed, by the position of the sun near the western horizon. Another failed attempt and another day wasted, he thought, steeping in his own melancholy. "This was what? Failed attempt 150?" he said aloud to precisely no one. No matter, he would be back again tomorrow. He'd be back the day after, if needed. With a scowl, he rose to his feet and started trudging back to his campsite, the low light making it only slightly more precarious than his trek out.

He arrived at camp just as the sun made its leave and Venus began to show itself in the night's sky. It was a clear night with good visibility, but Patrick opted to make a fire all the same. As he waved his hand to ignite a freshly gathered pile of wood, he mused the irony of his powers. It was true that through controlled use of his powers he could help himself and others. He knew this, he had seen this in action. But the same power that enable him to do good, derives itself from corruption. The thought of it honestly made him wonder if his powers were truly ever meant for good. Perhaps he got them by a fluke, he thought. Maybe they were planned to go to someone who was balls-to-the-wall evil?

"I am not evil," he said to himself, absentmindedly spinning the now lively campfire around in circles as it leapt off the burning wood. So learn to beat this shit, he followed up mentally.

There was a sudden, hollow, pop sound followed by a jolt through Patrick's spine as he felt the impact of an object. Immediately online, he was off the ground with a blast of air and whirled around to face the source of this intrusion. Two fireballs, one each hand, he looked across the evening scene of the thick temperate forest. No one was there, he scattered behind a nearby tree to regard himself. He had been hit by something sharp and it was still stabbing at his back as he moved. Patrick lowered himself to the ground and evaporated the fireballs and twisted to see the damage. It was a dart of some sort, clearly, the canister and feather fletching protruding from Patrick's back rather uncomfortably. The world began to lose it's sharp focus and Patrick felt his body becoming heavier. He clumsily removed the needle from his back and threw it away with an over-exaggerated motion. The constant tick of his heart began to slowly wind down, despite the adrenaline coursing through him. Sleep teased his senses, but as he succumbed, a sudden sense of falling would bring him back into sharp focus. The world seemed to suddenly have uneven gravity. Parts of Patrick's body no longer responding as he collapsed into the void. There was no violet to comfort him this time.


	4. Chapter 3

The aggressive stench of ammonia flooded Patrick's nose. Reflexively, he gasped deep breaths. His eyes shot open to find himself on his back, a bright intense white light staring him in the face. He strained and struggled to move, but his body - arms, legs, even neck - was locked tightly in place, restrained by some unseen force. The ammonia quickly faded, but it had done it's trick. Patrick was 100% awake, zero-to-sixty in no time flat. His mind was racing as he took in what he could. Nothing was apparent to view, in the flooding white light. A gentle hum of electronic fans and the quickly increasing bleats of a heart monitor were all he could here at first.

There came a voice. It was male, but tinged with a ghostly aggression. "Not an easy man to find," it said, each word eloquently spoken.

The lights dimmed slightly, still uncomfortably bright, but Patrick could begin to make out some of his surroundings. Patrick strained his eyes, the only body part he could manage to move, to look around. It was a medical clean room, or certainly looked the part. White surfaces with blue accents on the various walls and cabinetry. The whole place had a muted gloss of plastic, on which not a smear of smudge could be found. Above him was an entire apparatus of stainless steal. It glinted with the light; pristine and polished. The light was merely a part of this larger machine which held a medley of tools both mundane and gnarly. Certainly in no short supply were wickedly curved scalpels and small circular saws. Patrick gulped quietly, hoping the audible increase in the heart monitor could still be attributed to the smelling salts.

"That was the plan," Patrick said, the coy bravado of his voice masking his fear as best it could, "Who are you?"

"Oh, he doesn't remember," came a new voice. It was male, dripping with schadenfreude, speaking with an feigned offense. Patrick could not pin a name to it, but it ringed in his ears with a marked familiarity. An awkward silence hung over the room, as it was apparent the voice had expected to be recognized immediately. Then it spoke anew, with increased venom and genuine offense this time. "No? Not familiar?" Patrick could hear footsteps to his side. A shadowed form was above him, in full shadow by contrast of the light aimed at Patrick's eyes. The form leaned, the light now catching his face, rendering it slowly from black silhouette to full detail.

Patrick knew the face. It was in the compound where he had recovered Raven. The face of the man behind the ornate mahogany desk. Last time that Patrick had seen it, it was twisted and contorted with fear, eager to relent and give in to Patrick's demands. The Director.

"Not so brazen now, are we?" mocked The Director. He reached his hand down to mash Patrick's face between his fingers and thumb. "Sure you don't want to tell me all about how you'll... kill my daughter... slowly..." The Director made an exaggerated face of anger with each pause, each one more absurd than the next. He released Patrick's faced and addressed the teen with a mischievous glare.

Patrick remained stone-faced. The threats had been idle, made in desperation. But the way this man played them back filled him with only embarrassment for his impulsive youth.

"Son," The Director said with a face of malevolent glee, "Do you not understand the level of skunk works I operate at? Do you honestly believe I thought you could ever harm my family." The Director spat on Patrick's immobilized face. Patrick grimaced and contorted his right eye into a wink as the putrid slime slid down his brow, across his eye. "I had to keep from laughing in your face that night, you pretentious little shit."

"Then why'd you give me the key card?" Patrick asked rebelliously. He recalled a man that night quivering in his chair, sputtering to bargain for his daughter's life.

"Sector One was supposed to be inescapable. All I was handing you was a death sentence." The man spoke with deliberate emphasis on the past tense. Patrick had proven those assumptions to be quite mistaken that fateful night. "You were supposed to be my second catch!" He leaned away from the light and returned to the state of a silhouette. "You were my ticket to national operations, little buddy. And a brand new fuckin' company Bentley, new private jet, new private-goddamned-helicopter!" His voice grew more aggressive as he spoke each word, "But no, Kid Demon has to piss all over my American Dream." Each word was punctuated with exceptional resentment as he continued, the shadowed form of his body pacing around Patrick's suspended state. "Well, not today, obviously. Today, we take no chances. We catch one bird with one stone, and then we make that bird watch while I rip the fuckin' feathers off his other birdy friends." He reached the other side of Patrick and leaned in again with dramatic effect, "And rest assured. We will catch Raven just as sure as we caught you." "Because in all my time running this shit, all this shit right here," his gestured in a circular motion around him, including the world it seemed, "I have made sure one thing has always remained true. Nobody fucks with the Augustine Initiative and lives." He stared Patrick directly in the face with a set of newer, crueler eyes; ice cold and positively oozing malice.

The Director once again leaned away, returning to the ghastly shadow form, and walked from Patrick's sight. "Your doctor will be with you shortly." There was a click and the blinding light died, plunging Patrick into darkness. "Psimon! Come!" The Director barked. There was a shuffling sound of feet and then... nothing. All sound had faded but the humming whir of electronic fans, and the exceptionally fast cries of the heart monitor.


	5. Chapter 4

In the dark, Patrick tried in vain to summon his fire. Each time he would charge himself, sending whippets of hot air surging through the room, a machine would spin up with a low beep tone. For each moment it ran, Patrick could feel the heat leave his control, vanishing into the device. Several tries later, and he accepted it was hopeless. He relaxed his muscles and gave up on the brute force option, his heart monitor slowed in kind. Behind Patrick, a door opened silently. It was only detectable by the elongated rectangle of light that shined into the darkened room. Among the geometric shape, there was a human's shadow, backlit by the light outside Patrick's holding room.

"My, my, five whole gigajoules," said the acerbic, feminine, voice, "We must really want out." The shadow moved along the opposite wall, accompanied with the click-clack of high heels. As she did, the ambient lighting of the room began to rise. This time, there was no floodlight pointed directly in Patrick's field of view, the room was in sharper contrast. Cabinets to the left with various labels, some with biohazard symbols interrupting the soothing palette of white and blue plastics. To his right, there was more cabinets and a sink made of the same shimmering steel as the apparatus suspending menacingly above him. Directly in front of him there was a mirror, no doubt a two-way. He could make the woman out as she approached.

A pair of beady brown eyes, regarded a handheld tablet from the other side of cat-eye frame glasses. She was dressed in the typical regalia of a doctor: a white coat that matched her completion to a tee, black scrubs underneath, and a stethoscope around her neck. Her face was sharp, and oblong, and carried an expression of indignation. Brunette hair, pulled back to the point that it seemed to stretch her skin, was tightly packed into a top bun. "Demon power plants," mused the woman as she approached Patrick's right side, "I may just have to pitch that to The Director." The clack of high heels stopped.

Patrick silently stared daggers directly into the doctor's eyes.

"Oh!" she said with faux embarrassment, "Where are my manners? I'm Dr. Harquest. I'll be your medical liaison for the duration of your stay. If there's anything I can do to better accommodate you, don't hesitate to let me know." As she spoke, her face twisted with a sarcastic concern, each word hollow with false propriety.

"Let's start by unlocking my neck?" Patrick quipped with a deadpan tone. He knew full well that his functional paralysis was non-negotiable.

"Yes, I'm sure The Director would love an unlocked demon roaming his facility. I'll get right on that," she retorted sardonically.

That was the third time today he had been called that. Demon. Patrick had thought it was just some witty inside baseball from The Director, but even Harquest had adopted the term. "What's all this demon talk about, doc?" he asked genuinely.

The doctor let out a small chortle, but it screwed into a serious gaze for a moment as she scanned Patrick's face, realizing his question was in earnest. "Wait. You're serious?" She marveled, a fresh bout of snickering building up among her words. It quickly evolved to a hearty guffaw as she continued to regard Patrick's bewilderment. She continued on, quite pleased with herself. Dr. Harquest laughed for what must have been a full minute before she composed herself enough to speak again. "Oh, this is a treat, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically, "You don't even know what you are." She pulled up a rolling stool that had been out of Patrick's limited view and sat, her face now closer to Patrick's. Her smile was devious, betraying an eagerness to offend. "Well, hate to break it to you, champ," she said, as she swiped her fingers left and right on her tablet, "but you're a little hellspawn." She punctuated her last word with a tap on her tablet and spun it around for Patrick to regard.

It was the dossier for a Subject 930 - his dossier - complete with what appeared to be every miniscule detail of his life. Nothing apparent to Patrick stood out as… demon-ey. He regarded the pad with a perplexed gaze.

"Look at line 25," Dr. Harquest suggested with a slightly exasperated tone. She reached a perfectly manicured finger around the side of the tablet and swiped up, dragging the page down.

Patrick looked on and found the line in question. Silently, he read:

 _"_ _Direct, full-blood relative of Subject 895 (Samantha Johnson/Garrison [Deceased]). Desiccated blood analysis indicates nine of ten markers met. Lamashtu Index: .85. Equivalent or higher index in Subject 930 determined a biological imperative [see reference 86]."_

Patrick's flinched as his eyes scanned across the bracketed 'deceased'. Time and meditation had done lessen to lessen specter of his lost sister. The tragedy that he would both discover and lose his family on the same day, within the same hour, would truly never wane. He blinked back stubborn tears as Dr. Harquest reveled in the upset she had caused.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Harquest tutted harassingly. She made no attempt to conceal the joy she was deriving from the emotional torment. "But you can surely imagine our faces when we stumbled into a demon kill by sheer accident." She turned the tablet around and began tapping absent-mindedly through menus. "Shame I didn't get a chance to run any tests on her while she was still kicking," she added, almost sounding forlorn.

The lights in the room surged as Patrick felt the flames of rage manifest, but only for a moment. The machine had spun up instantly and robbed him of the heat he summoned. It was a show that still managed to rattle Dr. Harquest, if only slightly, for a moment. But as soon as the lights died to a normal level and the wind settled with it, she returned to tapping on her tablet.

"Well, enough of this dog and pony show," she said as she rose from the stool. "While I'm sure The Director will appreciate you shaving a few months of power bills off our budget, I'm not here to manage our grid..." Her face turned grim and stern. She reached up towards the ominous metal suite of tools hanging over head, grabbing onto what appeared to be a small circular saw on an ergonomic baton handle. The blade was a muted steel, coated with some sort of corrosive protectant. As Harquest pulled the device down effortless, an entire assembly of metal arms on hinges, springs, and rotors came with it, fully articulable to the ministrations of the doctor.

Harquest set the tablet to the side and moved out of Patrick's sight, the arm attached the medical saw betrayed her position as she walked with it in hand. It was only a few seconds and she was back in her stool, but this time wearing a clear, plastic mask, not unlick a welder's mask, were it not for the material.

The doctor reached over to her tablet and pressed a button. Three seconds later, she was met with a soothing machine tone, "Begin recording."

"Test Series: 930, subgroup: 1," she said as she flicked on the saw. The perfectly balanced machine whirred to life with almost negative sound. "Full break, partial break, and deep laceration analysis will focus on subject's healing response against control groups. Initial tests will focus on the Humerus of right arm and expand as needed." Her voice had changed to one of cold calculation.

"Initiating deep laceration," she said pulling the saw closer from the ceiling. Patrick looked right as hard as he could, but his neck would still not cooperate. He was only able to make out what was happening on the edge of his vision, but soon, seeing would be the least of his concerns.

The silent saw soon erupted with a symphony of cutting and wet tearing sounds as it encountered an obstruction: Patrick's skin. He let out a short, terrible howl of agony, trying in vain to wrench his arm away from the blade. The unrelenting torque of motor ground each tooth of the saw into his yielding flesh. His body was no match for the cruel tool and its crueler operator. Dr. Harquest toiled away in silence, seeming to work the saw deeper into Patricks' forearm to the beat of the now fluttering heart monitor. All things considered, Patrick had experienced far more excruciating pain at the hand of his own mind, but the punctuated realness of this was beyond anything meditation could bring. This was his real body being defiled, and he, a prisoner in it for the duration. His powers surged in desperation, and waned with the spin-up his bindings, surging the lights of the room brighter. Inside, every muscle he could manage was bursting with energy, immobile entirely.

Eventually, the saw relented and pulled away. Patrick gasped deeply in this moment of reprieve. No amount of air was enough, he was suffocating in the experience.

"Alright, now on to partial break," said Harquest to the recording tablet. The saw whirred on again, and with no ceremony, she cut into Patrick's forearm again. Pain, just as fresh as before. Nothing was numbed from the first experience. Now deep red, the saw blade cut as relentlessly as before. But now Harquest was not satisfied with just skin, muscle, and artery. The saw sunk deeper, and soon resonated with the sound of metal on tile. Patrick's body was wracked anew with pain. Each slash into his bone rattled his entire skeleton, echoing with a dread cacophony in his skull.

When Dr. Harquest finally switched off and released the saw from her hand, Patrick was drenched with heavy sweat and exceptionally lightheaded from the heavy blood loss. The saw whipped back up to its resting position, guided by the kit of hinges, bars, springs, and rotors it was bound to. Patrick lay motionless with three grooves in his forearm, each oozing thick, partially coagulated blood in his periphery. The bone had been completely severed with the last groove, Patrick recalled the odd numbness as the saw cut through the spongy marrow.

"Well, that does it for me today," Dr. Harquest said to her recorder. She pulled one of her surgical gloves off with the grace of a professional and leaned over to tap the tablet. There was a audible click sound from the speaker. She wheeled back to Patrick's side and leaned into his view. Her plastic visor was splattered with blood and tiny triangles of bone fragment, but she had a grim smile on her face. "See, that wasn't so bad," she said, adopting the tone of a pediatrician who had just given a child a vaccine.

"B-arely felt a thing," Patrick chided, his voice weak and scratchy with utter exhaustion.

Dr. Harquest frowned at his defiance, and sighed. She silently rose to her feet and there began anew the clatter of high heels. Each graceful step grew quieter as she retreated, so too did the ambient lights of the room dim. Soon Patrick was again faced with a rectangle of light and shadowed form. From there, Harquest spoke calmly, "Hate to break it to you, but you've only just set sail in the sea of shit I have planned for you. Try not to die tonight." The door closed from the top silently, the rectangle of light warping with it until it vanished.


	6. Chapter 5

Patrick opened his eyes to a familiar, mortifying, orange-red. Wrath's blaze stood before him, it's thick tentacles of corrupting flame whirling about. The monster was feeding again on the black backdrop of Patrick's mind, turning all in it's path to yet more wrath fire. Yet the familiar beast was behaving strangely. The twin cores of the fire, at the opposing edges of Patrick's vision, pulsated with vibrant hues of blue and gold, sending ripples of color through the fire all the way to the center of his field of view. It was a blaze with a new intensity, urgent in the way it spread and twisted. Alarmingly, one that had arrived without Patrick's invoking. Wrath had never come without being called before, instead preferring to hang just out of sight, poisoning Patrick's good intentions.

The blaze consumed as it always did, at an even faster rate, but auspiciously, did not come in contact with Patrick. The lashing arms of fire scraped out a near perfect sphere around Patrick, leaving him without a single burn. Wrath ballooned, filling every corner of Patrick's view with its blaze. There was no longer sweeping limbs, but one continuous explosion of heat. It encroached upon the small area of black that Patrick had been allotted, but did not expand in far enough to touch him. Still, his lungs burned in protest to the stifling heat that was bearing down on him. The blue-gold pulsation that Wrath had taken up quickened and intensified. Each blast of color momentarily changed the entire conflagration's overall shade. Faster the pulses came until each flash, blue or gold, was no longer distinguishable. The fire took on a white quality of intense brightness, very painful to look at. Patrick closed his eyes, but the light back-lit the trails of blood vessels of his eyelids, still oppressively bright through the skin.

Then came a sound; rapid, metallic, distant, and distorted. Two sounds, a sharp longer tone followed by a much shorter one that rounded out with a click. It played over and over in Patrick's mind. Each time, it seemed slightly clearer, each time, the sounds more organic. A hundered times later, the word 'it' replaced the shorter end sound and the click. "-ze it," the sound seemed to say, repeating on loop. Patrick could not make sense of it, but with each refinement, the tone grew clearer, more familiar. It was a ghost of a name on the tip of his tongue. Even heavily modulated, he knew it was familiar voice, an important voice. His eyes, still battered by the light of Wrath's fire, rolled around in his head as if to search for the face for this voice, but to no avail. Finally, it became clear:

"Use it."

Her voice. Raven's voice. That raspy, nasally tone that bit of sarcasm and a wit unending. "Use it," her voice repeated, each time, striking and resonating with spectacular profundity. Those two words seemed to speak a textbook's worth of knowledge for Patrick. Somehow, he innately understood what must be done. He opened his eyes, staring white oblivion in the face. Grit and determination overtook his face as, in one fell movement, he reached both hands high above his hands, straight in to the boiling cauldron of white-hot.

Patrick's eyes shot open in the real world, the lights around him were on, dancing on the knife-edge of maximum intensity before scrambling back to dim, and then back up again. He could hear the telltale whirl of the his bindings, sapping the heat straight from his person. Yet, a strange sensation began to envelop Patrick. He could feel a gradual heat building at his fingertips, despite the continuous absorption of the machine. Patrick envisioned his hands holding the reigns of the white hot fire, the tentacles doing his bidding for a smiling change. Immediately, Patrick felt the heat at his hands soar. The machine binding him began to chirp pathetically, alerting any listeners to it's impending demise. His thick sweat from earlier began to vaporize into steam and get buffeted around by the growing, chaotic wind.

The lights suddenly shot to bright white and shattered, plunging Patrick into near-dark, only slightly lit by the residual glow of the dying florescent gas. A puff of black smoke, barely visible in the corner of his eye, where his right hand would be, and the chirping of the machine grew deeper and distorted. As it finally faded, the incessant whir of the machine came to a sudden stop. Immediately, all the energy it had been absorbing rushed through Patrick's entire body. His clothes, a simple hospital gown, spectacularly burst into flame and burned away painlessly, leaving Patrick entirely nude. As if to preserve his modesty, the space around him suddenly began to crack with energy and ripple with mirage, distorting the entirety of his person. He could not longer see beyond the horizon of the scattered light. Where his skin met the air, there was an pronounced rose-red glow. Long arms of super-heated gas leapt from his body, arced back as they changed to cooler colors, and returned gracefully to the glow from which they had arisen.

Patrick could feel table he was laying on begin to bubble and distort from the heat. Large sparking blast, the death rattle of the various electronics hooked to him, showered the room in a fresh light. His neck was becoming less resistant to movement, the unyielding restraint had the consistency now of clay. So too was this true for his legs and arms. With great intent, he began to loosen his body, taking great care to not move his right arm until he could regard it's damages. His left arm pulled free first, the molten metal of his restraint dripped off his air-glow flesh like slime. No sooner than his arm was free, the room was plunged into chaos with a piercing alarm that echoed painfully off the plastic walls of Patrick's cell. There was no time to be careful, he thought, as he ripped his left and right leg free, his body seeming to phase through the metal restraints and leave yawning gaps of molten steel in their wake. His right arm had to come too. Patrick pulled, expecting a fresh rush of agony but was met with... nothing. Strange, he thought, but did not have time to further investigate. Finally, the neck. And after what felt like years on his back, Patrick finally stood again of his own will.

There came a barking order from the door, "DOWN ON THE GROUND!" Patrick could not see beyond the wall of rippling mirage his power had created, but it was clear now to him that his exit was cut off. If he was getting out, he would have to punch his own hole. No time to think, Patrick had to go up, and not stop until he was burning sky.

And that he did. Swift as the order had been barked, Patrick rocketed straight up at blinding speeds, riding aloft his power . The matte plastic ceiling gave way to a steel backer, and that, to a bubbling, molten hole - before Patrick's body had even made contact. He instantly punched through as though it were mere tissue paper. Up still he went through the next room. Faster still, each ceiling yielded with the same ease. He left in his wake air as hot as magma and ribbons of aurora that danced on the violently unsettled gasses. There were some people unfortunate enough to be standing in the wrong room at the wrong time. Patrick grimaced as he heard their doppler screams before the heat from his trail ended their tribulations. He had no choice, he kept telling himself as he ascended, yet each fiery death only fueled his power more. Faster, hotter, faster, hotter. Patrick would not stop.

At last, daylight.


	7. Chapter 6

Smooth, wet stone pressed at Patrick's back as he came to. His body ached bitterly with exertion. A world of mud and water awaited his bleary eyes as they opened. He was surrounded on all sides with smooth, perfectly circular, high walls of sopping earth and rock, the brown and grey playing together with layers of sediment as far up as Patrick could see. It was a perfectly smooth shaft reaching what must have been a hundred yards in depth. Off in the impossible distance, far above Patrick's head, there was a circle of light.

Steady streams of water poured down from above, each drop pitter-pattered on the stone floor and pooled around Patrick's body. It was a foul smelling water, noticeably brackish, even in this low light. Among the various trickling waterfalls of filth, there was the occasional explosion of sparks and a loud pop.

With a grimacing grunt of pain, Patrick hefted to his feet. Under him the rock that had been his bed was smoothed into an oval divot, perfectly contoured to Patrick's shape. It had the look of a freshly cooled lava flow, even so much as occasionally sizzling with the drops of water that fell. The vile water hungrily swarmed to occupy the space he had just made, as though he were getting out of a bath.

"Neat," he said tiredly. His still nude form, exposed for all the world to see, was now entirely covered in stink. With an exasperated sigh, he summoned a ribbon of heat beneath him and began to ascend slowly.

As he flew, Patrick mustered as much of his memory as he could. He recalled blinding heat; punching through layers of steel, and earth, and bone. There was daylight and… nothing. His entire recollection blanked out after that final layer of metal yielded to his freedom. Wherever he was, it was a long shot better than Dr. Harquest's shop of horrors.

Finally high enough to investigate, the waterfalls of putrid filth had revealed themselves to Patrick. Pipes, shorn at the point that the shaft met the earth, were spilling their contents down to the waiting pool below. The sparks too were of cut of the same cloth, seeming to be large-diameter wires in the same exact state of disrepair.

Muffled sound grew as he reached closer to the circle of light above. It was bustling, a constant droning hum with countless complexities overlaid on it. The occasional blaring burst of tone would quiet the track, but it would quickly return, just as it had been. As Patrick neared his escape, he began to recognize it for what it was: Traffic. Horns and emergency sirens blaring, cars moving across pavement, the shouting of people, the scratching disquiet of construction; it was all sound that Patrick knew. After years away he was finally reunited with a familiar urban ambiance once more.

The brim of the hole grew nearer and Patrick accelerated, but he stopped suddenly before exiting. He looked down at his body, now fully lit from the world above. "Yeah, definitely still naked," he said, displeased.

But then he heard it. Loud, aggressive, it loomed over all the other sounds of the city. A voice that demanded action, shouted, "Titans, go!"

He hovered in the hole dumbfounded for a moment, still out of sight from the world above, spare anyone who would peer directly down. It was Robin's voice, clear as day. Even after two years without it, he could recognize the growl of authority cut with the squeak of adolescence immediately. With a gulp, Patrick proceeded up. His heart was bursting with happiness to see them, but dread for the awkwardness to come. His thoughts swirled like scraps of torn paper in a blizzard. Would they ever forgive his sudden departure? Did they look for him? Did they think he was dead? Had they completely forgotten…?

Patrick poked only his head out of the hole, just up to the chin. There, amid the megalithic structures of glass and metal that was the Jump City skyline, stood the Teen Titans. Robin, Cyborg, Starfire, Beast Boy, and even Raven were all standing with full attention towards the hole and Patrick's emerging head. Immediately, their faces turned from aggression, to shocked confusion.

"Uh… hi?" Patrick said hopefully. He maintained his position in the hole, only his head showing.

There was a long silence as the Titans regarded the familiar teen in the hole. Even Raven's stoic face seemed a bit taken aback by it all. The others looked positively dumbfounded, but hers was sophisticated confusion, seeming more graceful in how it grasped at the unknown. She did not speak a word, though her eyes betrayed pain when she regarded him. It was Beast Boy who spoke first:

"Dude! What?!" he sputtered out, looking from the Titans, to Patrick, and back to the Titans.

"I'm honestly as confused as you guys," Patrick responded. "But… why are you guys here?"

The troupe of teens all looked at Patrick with even more puzzled faces. "Probably that," Cyborg piped in, pointing up and behind Patrick.

Patrick turned around slowly. Behind him stood a massive, Art Deco-styled, skyscraper of matte, off-white concrete and black windows that shimmered in the late afternoon light. Upon its crest was a massive 'W' extravagantly etched into the concrete side. The Wayne Enterprises Building. Only, there was something amiss. At around the thirty or forty floor mark, smack in the center of the building, there was now a fifteen-foot circular void of air. The edges still smoldered, evidence of a fire fought. Several news helicopters circled above like vultures for their scoop. At the base of the building was a laser light show of flashing red, blue, and white. An entire battalion of fire trucks sat, haphazardly parked in the building's main drive. Patrick turned back around with an embarrassed, guilty face.

"I – uh –," began Patrick. He struggled to find the words to explain away the millions of property damage, but they would not come. Several times it looked like he was about to begin a statement only to close his mouth and stare stupidly at the five. "It's good to see you guys?" he said with a hopeful inflection, finally giving up on explaining the whole situation.

To Robin's right, Starfire was becoming more noticeably upset by the moment. Deep pools of tears welled up in the emerald sparkle of her eyes. Her hands were at her side, clenched in fists, as she looked on towards Patrick. "Why?!" she asked, her voice shrill, as the tears finally escaped the binds of surface tension and ran down her cheeks with torrential abandon. "Why are you here?! Why did you leave!? Everyone thought you had died!"

Each word tore into Patrick's heart like hooks on a trawling line. He hung his head with shame. "Star… I…," the words would not come out. His head burst with apologies, with self-deprecation, with shame. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"We can talk about it later," Robin quipped sharply. Starfire sniffled and regained her composure at his command. "But for now, what happened, Patrick?"

Patrick gaze returned weakly to his once compatriots, "I can tell you everything I know." He looked down again, across his nude, filth-covered body and smirked wryly, "But can I get a pair of pants first?"


	8. Chapter 7

A hot shower. Patrick had forgotten the exquisite decadence of the experience in his time away. He basked beneath the pressurized jets of near-boiling liquid as it cascaded across his body. Hot water was easy to come by in the bush, but the clean, and consistent, pressure of the artificial streams massaged his skin in ways that nature never could. The grit and sewage of his earlier ordeal came off in sheets, leaving fair, sun-kissed skin in its wake. Black runoff pooled at Patrick's feet in a foul soup for only a moment before it fled down the drain.

Cleaned to his satisfaction, Patrick reached down and twisted a rather simple knob on the wall. With a creak and a hiss, the endless supply of the shower tamped shut. He stepped out of the shower and regarded himself in the mirror.

The smell of shit had left, but he certainly still looked the part. His mop of unkempt hair, long from his isolation, was a tangled mess of intertwined strands of brunette spaghetti. The grapevine of hair met his face and became beard, much patchier and very rough by comparison. For the most part, Patrick had kept the scrubby brush under control, cutting it back over the years when it got in his eyes or mouth, but the fashion still screamed of untamed wilderness. Deep black rings hung under his dichromatic eyes.

"Tan, at least," he said, marveling at his golden-browned skin. There were no grooming products for him at the sink. He made due by slicking his hair back with his hands, but the beard was hopeless.

The day could have gone so very differently, Patrick thought as he stared absentmindedly into his own green-hazel eyes. Police on the scene of Patrick's fiery arrival were all too happy to accept the 'meteor' explanation that Robin concocted for them on the spot. It meant less paperwork for them, after all. Quick thinking had saved Patrick from Jump City Central Booking, and likely from the immediate wrath of the Augustine Initiative. The Boy Wonder had no intention of letting this mystery go by uninvestigated.

Patrick stepped out of the bathroom wearing an outfit a few sizes too small. Khaki slacks that gave up slightly before his ankles, argyle socks of black and blue, and a polo shirt the clung uncomfortably. Some of Robin's old clothes. They'd do in a pinch, but there was no hiding that leader of the Titans was shorter and wirier.

The entire team sat expectantly on the curved couch of the sunken living room. Patrick walked in from the hallway to find them there. There were no words as Patrick approached. He stood in the area directly in front of the teens, one lectern short of a symposium.

Beast Boy and Cyborg seemed the most welcoming of the five. They regarded Patrick with a welcoming gaze, seemingly eager to listen, and accept, his impending explanation. Robin had taken a much more incredulous stare, the black outline of his trademark mask seemed to warp and contort with his furrowing brow. Starfire evaluated Patrick much as she did previously, the hurt and anger boiled over in her eyes. But it was Raven whose look was the most vexing. The shimmering violet spoke nothing to him. Her stare was fixated seemingly beyond Patrick's face, into his very head. There were no smiles. None of them seemed interested in speaking first.

Patrick gulped. "I guess it's been – uh – a while," he finally said. Starfire audibly 'humphed'. Small talk was going to get him nowhere. He sighed quietly, not even sure why he had tried, then took a deep breath.

"Remember the last night I was here?" Patrick began. The team nodded almost immediately.

It seemed so long ago, yet reverberated with brilliance still. His lips on Raven's, tender and soft. The punctuated 'thank you' for all she had done. But these were not the details the team needed to hear.

"I was… struggling," Patrick began again, "with something inside of me." Raven's eyes seemed to know exactly what he meant, but the rest of the team only grew more confused. "The complex where I found Raven, where I… killed our way out," he said. His voice became more distressed as he spoke. There was a lump in his throat as he finally spit out the 'k-word'. With a loud gulp, he looked at the team. Their faces had softened and they listened intently to his tale. Even Raven's blank stare began showing signs of interest and concern. Patrick hung his head and screwed up his courage to finish. "I liked it," he finally weakly said after a pause that seemed cosmic in scale.

Frowns met him as he finally admitted his shame. Judgment, shock, and disappointment, from all five members of the team. In truth, it was Raven's gaze that damaged Patrick the most. The indigo orbs cut with bewilderment for his sudden admission. He could feel himself shrink under her stare. But the hard part was over. All that was left was the exposition.

Patrick went on for several minutes more, explaining how he had spent the last two years as a dyed-in-the-wool forest spirit. He explained the daily meditations, the progress he had made. Beast Boy and Cyborg seemed a bit taken aback with all the mystical self-discovery talk, but Raven, Starfire, and Robin maintained their rapt attention. When he got to Wrath, he stopped.

"I couldn't beat it," he said, defeated. "Every time I summoned it to battle, I would die a thousand agonizing deaths to the flame and simply… wake up." He had taken to pacing around in small, tight, ovals as he spoke now, gradually becoming more comfortable opening up to his receptive audience. "So that's what I've been doing these past hundred-fifty or so days."

"But what about the hole?" Robin leaned in.

"It's coming," Patrick responded calmly. He explained his last night at camp, the tranquilizer attack, and waking up in a plastic room of melodic machines. His spoke of the familiar, cruel, face of The Director and the organization's name: The Augustine Initiative.

"When they…," he could feel tears beginning to pool in his eyes, no doubt the gloss visible to the teens regarding him, "When they got Sam…" A single tear escaped his best attempts to blink it back. It ran a rapid path down his left cheek and dripped from the tip of his chin. He stopped pacing, paused and sighed, "They ran tests on her blood." His voice shook with distress and outrage, "She was a demon, or had demon in her - I don't know. But Dr. Harquest said I was no different than her."

Raven noticeably raised a brow at this statement of fact. The rest of the Titans merely sat there, letting it all sink in.

"He said he'd get you again too, Raven – The Director, I mean," Patrick said, breaking another sharp silence that had invaded his long pauses. Raven's eyes widened almost imperceptibly with the sudden mention of her name. She shuddered visibly with the thought.

He continued on with as great of detail as he could muster about the cell he was in. Nothing was spared. Patrick explained the bindings, his and Sam's subject number, the name spoken by the director, 'Psimon'. Robin was very clearly taking in-depth mental notes for further analysis, but the mention of that name seemed to grab everyone's attention anew.

"After she tried to cut my arm off, I… well… I can't say I honestly know what I did," Patrick said. He described the uninvited appearance of Wrath. With exacting specificity, he painted the curious colors and behaviors it displayed. "It just worked," he said exasperated, "More power than I had ever felt. So I flew up. ...I don't remember landing in Jump, though…"

Patrick stopped speaking, letting the team digest this past two years of history and the name of their new enemy. Robin opened his mouth, "But the test you describe… your arm is fine."

"You can still kind of make it out," Patrick responded as he rolled up his sleeve. The arm was nearly immaculate. No scab, just skin. But for the astute observer, three notches of paler-than-tan skin stood slightly out against the backdrop of his browned flesh. "Seem to have also lost a few scars along the way," he added. It was true, his forearm, once a minefield of zig-zag lines, was now smooth. Gone were the fifty three cuts of his impetuousness.

No one spoke for a few moments. The team seemed intent on processing still. Beast Boy's face contorted as he tried to puzzle out the experience that Patrick had just laid out. The rest of the Titans were much more stoic with how they handled this new information.

"Guys, please, you have to understand," came Patrick's voice, shattering the mute. "It wasn't safe for me to be here. I couldn't be sure that I wasn't going to lose it and just start glassing the city if shit went wrong." He continued to ramble on, desperately pleading understanding to the team.

Robin rose to his feet and walked closer to Patrick. "You don't need to do this alone," he said finally, clapping his right hand onto Patrick's left shoulder. His words shook with understanding, sincerity… with comfort.


	9. Chapter 8

Patrick dragged a stack of heavy boxes into a nondescript bedroom. The boxes, thick with the dust of inattention, left billowing clouds of the thin particulate in his trail. Wafts of the mustiness of cardboard danced on the crisp scent of the clean, vacant bedroom. His nose tickled from the smell, and the dust. It was a familiar room. It had been his… before. Titan Tower's storage held all his old possessions, mostly acquired in his time with the team. They had thrown absolutely nothing away. He had already changed back into his old clothing. It was a multi-part ensemble that consisted of black, black, black, and more black. Black t-shirt, black baggy jeans, black socks, black boxers, black everything. In his closet: more black jeans, more black shirts, black casual jackets, and a black duster. The whole wardrobe was anathema now; embarrassing. But it was all that fit him, unless Cyborg had a secret stash of jorts. The thought brought a small smile to Patrick's face.

"I wonder when they packed it all up," he mused quietly to himself, looking down at the boxes for a moment.

"We waited for a long time," came Starfire's airy voice. Patrick whirled around with a start to find her floating at the doorway. She was eyeing him with a sneaking suspicion, but more warmth than earlier. Her alien eyebrows didn't seem to know if they should scowl or be weepy. "Over a year," she followed, "Robin said we should pack it up, but Raven said you'd be back. Until… she did not." Her voice sunk sadly as she finished.

Patrick winced. Of course she had moved on, he thought. Who wouldn't? His mind raced with a thousand different ways the last two years could have gone better. Each alternative universe spiraled out in sequence. They blossomed from the first ripple - his decision to stay - into glorious fabrications, radiating with comfort and a familiar warmth. But he could not live in these little knotholes of his mind. No, this was his universe; the only one he knew. It was scarred and pocked with the opportunity costs of his impulsiveness, but it was all he had. He snapped back into full reality with a little shake of the head, and spoke, "Star... I-"

"I am not here for more apologies," she interrupted. Her eyes were closed and her face turned up. She spoke with an unclear tone. Resolute, yes, but not obviously cut with anger. "Come with me now please."

Patrick obliged, leaving the unopened box to the side. The rest could wait. Starfire lofted with grace through the dim hall, towards the living room. Patrick followed with a mild pace. Absolute silence. This was actually exceedingly rare for Starfire. Her mind usually crackled with exuberance, never failing to escape her mouth. But now, her face was contorted into a stoicism that didn't seem to fit comfortably. A grin would slip here and there as they moved, but it she would hide it in a grimace, then will herself back to full stoic.

The living room was near dark when they entered. It was familiar like this. The large windows, opposite the Kitchen, painted the purples and blues of the setting sun on Jump City's Skyline. Parallel light struck the objects in the room and cast long shadows towards the opposing wall. The display was serene, peaceful. It emanated a calming familiarity that put Patrick at ease. Starfire stopped in the center of the room and looked around. There was no one in sight. For a moment, it looked like she was hesitating, uncertain what to do. Her face was no longer full of stoic resolve, but instead she seemed to be juggling a plethora of options before her. She inhaled deeply, and her face again returned to assuredness.

"You mustn't tell Robin I am showing you this," she began, very quietly. Patrick nodded silently in agreement and Starfire again began hovering away, motioning to follow.

Titan Tower was a maze of corridors and restricted access areas. Patrick had rarely seen more than the top levels where everyone actually lived. Dow below the crossbar of the uppercase 'T' that was their home, the familiar warmth of home was nowhere to be found. Starfire blazed a fairly quick clipping trail and Patrick followed in stride. Left down one corridor, right down another, and sometimes a smaller service elevator, it seemed to go on until Patrick was suitably lost. Finally, a set of double-doors stared Patrick and Starfire in the face. Expertly, the Tamaranean entered a set of keypunches on an adjacent keyboard. At her command, the doors parted with the hiss of a pressure change. Starfire floated into the room and again beckoned to follow.

Patrick found that it wasn't so much of a room as it was a hall. Extravagant, even by the standards of other things in the Tower. It was polished marble on all sides, walls, ceiling, and floor. Small circles were cut out of the otherwise smooth canopy, home to a brilliant series of recessed lights that illuminated everything with diamond sparkle. There was a runner of red velvet carpet that delegated the path ahead. As the red splash of color met the opposite wall, it forked into two perpendicular paths. Starfire led on in the brilliantly lit room, taking the left path. Patrick followed closely.

They were staring at an expertly sculpted, slightly larger-than-life, statute of a young woman. The slate grey granite was immaculately smooth on all exposed surfaces. She was a familiar face for anyone who watched the nightly news around Jump: Terra. She stood there in immortal granite, with a defiant stance and her head held high.

"I know her," Patrick said quietly, "Terra, right?"

Starfire nodded. She regarded the statue with a melancholy. Slowly, she began to descend to the grown from her hover.

Patrick looked to her, and the statue, and back to her. "What happened?" he asked. The look on Starfire's face seemed to betray that this was no mere hall of champions, but something much sadder indeed.

"She... died," Starfire said. She teared up with the thought. The usual bright and cheery exterior she carried was lost deep in the throws of misery. But she did not fall into outright crying. This was the sting of a long since scarred wound. She placed her hand on the pedestal on which the granite statue rest, bowed her head, and closed her eyes. Respectfully, Patrick followed suit. Her mouth moved silently for a moment, forming words that Patrick could not make out. She did this for a moment, then turned around to face Patrick, green eyes open. She inhaled deep as if to clear away the sad and spoke again, "Follow me."

"I don't get it Star, why are we-" Patrick began, but Starfire was already off, back the way they came. Patrick followed her as, this time, she went straight on, following the only path not yet taken in this marble mausoleum.

Patrick was staring at a familiar young face; his own. A lifelike granite replica of the same smooth craftsmanship, formed in exacting detail to Patrick's image, was perched on a pedestal identical to Terra's. It was him in all his angsty glory, clad in a long duster that seemed to billow in a nonexistent wind, despite the stone medium.

"I brought you here to see this," Starfire said, not pointing at the statue itself, but near the base.

Patrick looked closer. It was a dried flower. A tulip, if his inner-botanist was correct. It seemed several days old, yet the browning and wilted petals still exploded with an intense blue.

He sighed. Starfire seemed hellbent to get across just how much his leaving hat hurt her. "Starfire," he said, looking back to her guiltily, "I'm sorry. I didn't know you cared so much."

Starfire's face bent into a perplexed gaze. "I - um," she said, digging deep for Earthly social graces, "They are not from _me_."

Patrick blushed slightly, recalling now the parable of assumptions and asses. "Then..." Starfire nodded slowly, watching Patrick ponder it out. She reached her finger casually up to her the center of her forehead, and pointed. A small torrent circle of green light formed around the extended finger tips.

Patrick's eyes dawned with a sudden realization. He opened his mouth to form the word, "Rav-," but was immediately cut off by the blaring call of the Tower alarm.

Trouble in Jump City.


	10. Chapter 9

The team met atop the tower as the alarm finally died. Moonless night had swept over the greater Jump City metro. Starfire and Patrick had been the last two to arrive, greeted by Robin with a slight jealous suspicion. Patrick shrugged at Robin innocently. This seemed to satisfy the young leader and he went straight to business:

"Alright guys," he said authoritatively, "We don't have much for this one…" Robin went on to explain what little intel could be gleaned by the call for help. The nightclub district of the city was under attack by an unknown force. Reports indicated civilians were being explicitly targeted and that no movement towards any high value targets were apparent. "I know," he said exasperatedly, "I hate going in blind too, but we're going to have to make this work. Titans! Go!"

With the command, they were off. Beast Boy morphed to a massive pterodactyl and snatched up Cyborg under the arms, Starfire carried Robin, effortlessly, in much the same way. Patrick and Raven took up the rear. Patrick regularly looked over to her as the team flew in complete silence, but her eyes never met his. Strangely, each time his gaze fell on her, her flight path would seem to wobble, almost imperceptibly, for a moment. Patrick shrugged and put it out of his mind. They could talk later.

The blackened city skyline betrayed no signs of trouble from the distance, but as they approached, a section of the city, the night club district, could be seen bathed in the slight red glow of several small fires. It looked like a riot in its last throes of being broken up. Overturned cars had been lit on fire along with trashcans and newspaper dispenses. Street lamps had fallen from their home, rooted in the ground, and laid shattered on the roads. Storefront windows were shattered and strewn with debris. The various dance clubs that sprawled across the strip had none of their typical accoutrement of lines, flashing lights, and pounding bass. Chaos was apparent from even this distance, but nothing would prepare them for the scene to come though. This was no mere riot.

Starfire gasped in horror, overshadowing the rest of the team's more muted reactions. Gore and shambling nightmares unending met the team as they landed. The hellscape of a city street was strewn with heads, arms, torso, legs, all severed from their associated whole. Each piece looked as though it had been put through the ringer before being violently separated from their host body. Deep lacerations flayed what little skin remained on the parts out in a grotesque fashion. Ruby pools of coagulating blood streaked in long paths across most of the sidewalks and roads. Pieces of organs and entrails sat in splattered heaps haphazardly.

Robin refocused the team, he too visibly shaken by the scene. Nothing could be done for the shredded remains at their landing site, but ahead, there was the sound of hundreds of independent, agonized screams. The Boy Wonder urged the team onward and they made haste down the strip, towards the source of the fearsome sounds.

There was a feminine voice of pure sadism, sarcastically whispering gibberish in Patrick's mind. It grew in volume as they neared the source of the agonized screams. The words made no sense. "Vazirizx... Ciro… Aldruon… Mortix…" she - perhaps, it - spoke rapidly. Patrick could only pick out some of the arcane words. They had a familiar twang to them, but none struck as hard as when it spoke, "Azarath." He gulped and looked over to Raven. Perhaps she was hearing something similar. There was her same minuscule flight-path wobble, but she seemed otherwise unaffected. Patrick's internal descent to madness would soon become the least of his concerns, though. As the Team rounded a blind corner, they met the crime scene in all its terror.

Chaos - complete and utter - reigned. Bloodied civilians were fleeing from all directions, screaming with the incoherence of pure nightmare. Some were unfortunate enough to already be rid of their left or right arms, but rarely were they missing both; not yet, at least. Though, not a single person had been unscathed, it seemed. From their wounds, they did not drip the typical crimson. This blood was black and bubbling, like hot pitch. It oozed from their wounds with a sizzling, squelching sound. Where it would strike the pavement, the corrupted blood seemed begin moving on its own, coalescing into pools about the size of a trashcan's lid. When they reached that critical size, out emerged a chittering horror, the size of a large dog.

Twelve legs of sooty black, met at a body equally shrouded. The form was impervious to greater detail, nothing beyond an outline could be determined, spare a set of ten searing, red eyes, front-and-center, in arrays of three. As its final pair of legs came free of the bubbling tar, the abominable cross of spider and crab screeched a sound of metal on porcelain, and skittered off after the unfortunate citizen who had birthed it. Thousands of these creatures were in play, their dark bodies almost impossible to see in the low light of the city streets. Interlaced among the screams, amplified a many fold, was the sound of their vile limbs cracking with movement, and the gnashing of unseen teeth. It was enough for Patrick to forget the voices of gibberish in his head.

The team watched in horror as countless civilians were overtaken, before they could even act. Massive orgies of the monsters descended, remorseless, onto the men and women alike. Cuts and slashes were torn into their supple flesh. Their limbs came loose. All the while, screams. The monsters did not kill their victims outright, instead seeming to relish in the suffering. Only once the blood stopped flowing and the yelps of agony vanished, did they sever the head and tear into the exposed heart and lungs.

Robin wasted no time. Instinctively, he extended his metal bo staff, and shouted to advance.

"Stop!" came the stoic, yet commanding, voice of Raven. In a blur, she shot out in front of the pack, her hands bursting with the black energy of soul self. Her mouth moved with a silent chant as she hovered in front of the crowd of death.

"Azarath… Azarath… AZARATH… AZARATH… **AZARATH**!" the voice returned to Patrick's head with only these words. It became shriller with every moment of Raven's incantation, more angry now, than sarcastic. Louder and louder, it pounded his mind relentless. He clutched his ears and shut his eyes, but to no avail, the sound was already inside, blasting with an impossible decibel. Rough concrete ground into his knees as he fell hard on them. The world around him fell away, it was only the screaming voice now.

Then, suddenly, it vanished. No gradual fade, the voice stopped mid-Azarath, leaving Patrick with silence in his mind. Gone too were the sounds of screeches, and skitters, and gnashing teeth. "Cyborg! Check on Patrick," Robin demanded, "Star, BB, Raven, let's... do what we can." There was a sudden trepidation in his voice after he paused.

Patrick could hear heavy metal footfalls approaching. Each clunk was followed by a quiet mechanical whir, and yet another clunk; the telltale sounds of a sprinting Cyborg. Patrick opened his eyes and was met with the machine-man's familiar face. Cyborg was concerned, even the mechanical portions of his face seemed to contort with distress. "You alright?" he asked, lifting Patrick back to his feet and dusting off his back with a clap. Patrick was about to respond, but stopped in shock, right as his lips pursed to form the 'm' in 'I'm fine'. His face paled and his mouth gaped.

The blood had been more muted, when it was bubbling pitch. But with the departure of the creatures, torrents of red now filled the streets. Hundreds of people lay dead or dying, their chest's cracked open and entrails strewn sloppily out. Some poor, cursed souls, with the astronomical bad luck of still being conscious, rolled around with bubbling groans of pain. They painting the asphalt red, as though their body were a sponge brush. Large swatches of flesh plastered the scene. Patrick could see the team floating ahead, surveying what they could, in desperation to help. There was no saving these people. The destruction had been instant, and utter. Those who hadn't already bled out would surely be dead within minutes. The intense sound of sirens blared in the distance. It echoed, booming, of the concrete and steel of the city. Too late to matter, help was on its way for these damned souls.

Patrick flinched at the gore, then looked to Cyborg. "I don't suppose you heard any voices... in your head... did you?" he asked. Patrick felt the flush of embarrassment. The question sounded even more absurd on his lips than it did in his mind.

Cyborg looked at him with a confused face. "N-No," he said hesitantly, "can't say I heard anything over all..." He gulped, "...this..." There was a pause before Cyborg said, "Come on, we gotta help 'em out."

Patrick took to a slight hover and followed Cyborg as they regrouped with the team. Bloodied hands, attached to mangled bodies, reached up as they passed. Pale faces, frozen in horror, cried out voicelessly for help. Nothing could be done.


	11. Chapter 10

A solemn, grey face, haggard by stress, addressed the nation from behind desk of polished Teak. At his back, dueling American flags on either side of white windows. Jump City's news channels had been eagerly awaiting this speech, transitioning smoothly to the broadcast, but elsewhere in America, the Saturday Morning Cartoons and infomercials cut sharply to his visibly unhappy face. "Good Morning," he began. His voice was muted, "Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a deliberate and deadly act." The President paused for effect, "The victims were merely out to enjoy a Friday evening - secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors. This was a heinous, and cowardly, act. And given what we now know about what took place, the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism.

The President continued on for some time, at length. He never failed to pull a heartstring, or exploit a mote of nationalistic pride. The words seemed to fall out almost effortlessly, marked with proper inflection at every key syllable. His speech painted a night of violence, but his language reservedly tasteful. He spent no time detailing the terrified howls of human fountains, nor the pieces of people scattered like confetti. But the words still carried a gruesome nightmare. And in truth, the citizens of America would soon enough see the footage in the news.

"We do not know, yet, who is responsible. What we do know, is the weapon used. This vile attack used agents of Hell itself against us; demons." The President paused. His face turned from remorseful, to stern. "Let me be clear," he said, fire in his eyes, "these events can, and will, happen again. So long as the nation does not address the incursion of Hell onto it's soil, Jump City will happen again. And for this reason, I have enacted Executive Order one-forty-eighty-five. The United States will no longer stand idle as denizens of Hell swarm within our boarders. Effective immediately, we will begin a coordinated effort to hunt down these creatures, and send them back to their infernal plane."

Floor fell out from Patrick as he stood in the Titan Tower living room with the others, watching the broadcast. Morale had been low, it was now crushingly worse. On the massive screen, The President continued, "The search is underway for those who are behind this evil act - they and their putrid ilk. I've directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find these abominations, and bring them to justice. And make no mistake, we will make no distinction between hellspawn, and those who harbor them. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America."

The programming switched back to the local news, eager commentators dissecting the five minute speech. Some were concerned with his syntax, and phrasing. The legal expert chimed in with the various challenges the order could expect, dropping the bombshell of the dreaded Supreme Court. Chatter unyielding, it melded into a mush of static in the background as Patrick pondered the more personal implications. The Titans, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Starfire, and Robin, had turned to regard Patrick and Raven. In her typical style of calm, cool, and collected, Raven barely looked perturbed by the announcement. Patrick, however, was much more visibly shaken.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Robin said, mainly to Patrick, "We're not going to let that happen."

The team nodded in agreement, Beast Boy and Cyborg sported a loud, 'Booyah!' The show of solidarity raised everyone's spirits, yet the tragedy of the prior night still stuck in their collective sides, like a dull, smoldering knife. "Well, I gotta go switch over to backup power so the city doesn't black us out," Cyborg said. His words triggered the group to disperse slowly. Not a one of them seemed even the slightest bit concerned with their sudden status as criminals.

Patrick turned to see a violet cloak flapping away towards the hallway. "Hey, uh, Raven..." he said meekly.

The cloak whirled around to reveal her blank face, staring through him. "What?" she said, in her typical, cold tone. It was just them in the living room, still dim with the light of late dawn.

Patrick shrunk slightly at her cold stare. These were not the eyes he remembered, or what played in his mind when he meditated. He sighed. "This maybe will sound crazy," Patrick began, inhaling deep to speak again, "but back in the city, I was hearing a voice in my head. A-and it got really loud when you were doing... well... whatever it was you did to get rid of those demons. It kept saying 'Azarath', over and over... and other things." Good God, you're babbling, he thought, self-consciously shutting his mouth.

Raven's eyes widened as he spoke the word Azarath. She muttered something quietly to herself.

"I'm sorry? Socks Spam-Guinness?" Patrick asked, her words were unclear.

She looked at him with a chiding glare. It was all in the eyebrows, the eyes were still blank. But at least this time, thought Patrick, she was looking at him and not ten feet past the back of his head. Strange, though, as her eyes met his in genuine, her hair lofted up for a moment and the crackle of her soul self could be heard. She looked away again, back past his head, and acted like nothing had happened. Patrick had been certain he saw it, but it came and went so quickly, maybe he was seeing things, he thought. " _Vox sanguinis_ ," she repeated more sharply, expertly navigating the Latin. "It means 'voice of blood'," she followed, "wait here." She shot off down the hallway at a quick clip. Patrick was now alone in the dimly lit living room.

He did not have to wait terribly long. When Raven returned, Patrick was seated on the couch, staring absentmindedly out the window at the Bay. She was carrying an antique-looking book with brown, flaking, leather binding. Etched on the spine was an ornate, symmetrical line art, all exploding from a central pentagram. The lines continued onto the front and back covers of the book, meeting in their center with larger, more ornate, pentagrams as well. "This," she said calmly as she sat. She set the book down on the small, circular, yellow coffee table in front of them. Patrick leaned in and she opened to a bookmarked page. "Right here," she said as she pointed out a small passage.

 _"A curious case of telepathy seems to guide the countless offspring. It's as though their mother cries out in her mind, and their labors increase with a shudder. There are no words, but I can see their reaction clear as day. Her mind is the lash, she need not raise a finger. Yet, should other demons wander into her domain, she then resorts to true, physical force. For my observations, I believe this to support a theory of vox sanguinis - a voice of the blood - connecting parent to progeny."_

The passage continued on with several other related findings, all suggesting the same phenomenon, further refining the suggested connection of the blood. Patrick looked at Raven, confused. "Parent?" he asked her.

Raven nodded. "Yes, parent," she said matter-of-factly, "Now, I need you to remember, what words - exactly - did you hear." Her eyes met his again, but this time, no sparking crackle, no floating hair.


	12. Chapter 11

His parent - no - his mother. Patrick laid in his room, staring at the ceiling, engrossed in the thought. Outside the wall-length window, the sun was midway through its long, arcing journey. Jump City and its picturesque bay glinted in the intense light. It had been as though nothing happened. The whole city looked exactly as it did the day before. Like no one got the memo that a serious, earth-shattering display of cruelty had unfolded hours prior. No, the shining city stopped for nothing. Patrick's thoughts turned to what he had heard that night. The images, he was sure, would stay plenty vivid in the meantime. She sounded so cruel, he thought, remembering the vile pounding in his head. Each word had lashed out in his mind with a cutting tongue. And this was supposed to be what birthed him?

"No wonder I'm fucked," he muttered sarcastically.

His mind screamed with an opened Pandora's Box of questions, in defiance of his body's pleas for rest. There was no helping it. Too much was going on to sleep. Truer still, sleeping in the daylight hours was a luxury to which Patrick had not yet been fully reacquainted. His bloodshot eyes stay wide awake, seemingly fixated on the marvels of the ceiling. Perhaps the reason his power seemed so evil, he thought, was because it truly was. Perhaps that part of him that reveled in the fiery demise of others, it was merely a facet of his creation. Half of him was of Hell, after all. The thoughts swarmed up in a plague on Patrick, and he rolled to his side. Cool linens on his cheek calmed the tempest. It was pointless to lay in bed.

-

Patrick walked the hallways of the upper tower with nimble ease. The map in his head was like a ghostly companion, always there when he called for it. Robin's room didn't stand out, beyond the line of text on the door bearing his name. It even resonated with the same metal clank of all the other doors of the house. The door shot upwards in short order, revealing the leader of the Teen Titans, in his typical crime-fighting attire.

"Patrick?" he asked, "What's up?"

Patrick sighed. He was certain his face betrayed the 'nothing' that he wanted to say. "Family troubles," he finally said, managing a weak smile. "Look, I was hoping I might be able to get out of here for a minute - maybe get some clothes that aren't so...," he motioned to his current outfit of black-on-black-on-black.

Robin nodded knowingly, the outfit truly _was_ terrible. "I'd say yes, but not alone. Given what The President said earlier, I don't want to take the risk of either of you getting caught flat-footed."

Patrick's mind caught for a moment. 'Either of you?' he repeated in his head. Either? They had regarded both him, and Raven too, strangely this morning, as The President was spelling doom for all demon-kind in America. "Wait, so... Raven too?"

"I thought she had told you," Robin said, flummoxed.

"Everything but, it seems," Patrick responded, somewhat bewildered. "It's... okay. I won't tell her."

"Thanks," Robin said. He then cocked his head up, "Actually, there was something I was hoping I could get your help on..."

"Name it," Patrick said eagerly.

"I've been working with Batman on the stuff that's been going down in Jump lately - ever since you punched a hole downtown. He's been doing some digging on the various connections to this new executive order. Actually, it's kind of a long story, just come in real quick."

Patrick stepped into Robin's room. It was a sparse, East Asian styled, and appeared to value function over form. Among the miniature dojo, of sorts, there was a bed on one side, and a computer desk at the other, complete with attached, swivel chair. Between the two was large swaths of open space and padded floor, perfect for martial arts training. The computer on Robin's desk didn't seem out of the ordinary from the standard tech in the tower, yet radiated with a raw power that the rest did not. Robin sat at the chair and tucked into the desk. With a few expert clicks, the machine was off it's lock screen and Patrick was staring at a live feed of... actual god damn Batman.

Hero worship wasn't something Patrick was often confronted with with. Mainly for having had so few heroes growing up, and meeting even fewer. But here was the big kahuna. Chief long dong. The literal Dark Knight. He could hardly deny the tingle that ran up his spine merely meeting the florescent white eyes of The Caped Crusader. To Patrick's infinite fortune, Robin spoke before he could utter whatever banalities rode across his giddy mind.

"This is him," Robin said curtly. He seemed to be speaking in a deeper voice than usual, more short with his phrasing too.

The digital Batman on the screen glanced again at Patrick. "So you're the one punching holes in skyscrapers?" he asked.

"I- well, I - uh ," Patrick yammered. "Yes," he finally mustered, flush with embarrassment.

Batman seemed a bit perplexed by Patrick's behavior, but paid little mind to it. "This is very simple," he said. His voice was gruff and authoritarian, grating on Patrick's ears as he spoke, "I am going to show you a few faces. You tell me if any of them are this 'Director' of yours."

An array of faces appeared on the screen. Patrick leaned in to investigate. They were all white men, mid-forties, brown-haired, and bespectacled. Each was clad in a full charcoal or Navy blue suit, curiously positioned in front of an unfurled American flag. Some were turned slightly to the left, some to the right. Their posture was stiff, all of them, like school picture day. Each slightly concerned, forced smile was unfamiliar. But as he scanned the page further, towards the bottom left quadrant, a familiar smirk called out to him. There he was. The enigmatic Director, the only one seemingly comfortable in his own skin. His sharp gaze seemed to penetrate, even in this low-res form.

"There," Patrick said surprised, "that's the one. It's uh... number D-10"

Batman did not miss a beat. "Hmm, as I suspected," he said, his deep graveled voice betraying precisely zero emotion. The image expanded to take up the full size of the screen. "Robin, Patrick, the man you are looking at is named Arthur Lynch. I've actually had my eye on him for quite some time now. His arrival in the Senate corresponded with Jump City's senator, Cynthia Chow, rather strangely requesting several billion in earmarks for 'enhanced, disaster-resistant infrastructure'." Batman did not elaborate on this, moving briskly through the facts, "Oddly enough, Arthur does not exist anywhere, beyond a name and a security badge photo in the Congressional database. The federal money that came into the district also managed to vanish. I traced it through at over five hundred shell corporations, operating out of the Caymans, Switzerland, Dubai, Shanghai, Gotham, Metropolis. Eventually, the money had jumped around so much, and been repackaged into so many exotic instruments, it was not longer reportable income for any party. 105 billion, gone, yet completely accounted for." Batman paused to observe the teens, now digesting his detective expertise. "Find Lynch, you'll find your billions, and your Augustine Initiative. Robin, keep me informed."

And with that, there was a click. Batman was gone and Robin's computer reverted to a blank desktop.


	13. Chapter 12

Status?" Robin demanded. The team had again regrouped in the living room. The sun was beginning to set behind them, bathing the room in orange back light.

"We're running free of the city's grid," Cyborg said first, "Short of a direct EMP, we should be safe from blackouts."

"And Star and I didn't see anything obvious going on in Jump," Beast Boy piped up. He had struck a more serious tone than his usual. Starfire, however, was quick to correct him, noting the several interesting hats she had spotted in their patrol.

"…Right…" Robin said exasperated. "And what about you, Raven? Any idea what we're dealing with here?"

Raven had brought several books with her to the meeting. Spare the one she was currently reading, they sat in a neat pile on the coffee table. Her eyes peaked up above the leather-backed tome. "Yes. Some," short as always. She closed her book, placing it neatly on the pile, and stood up to address the group.

"I believe we're dealing with an extremely powerful demon acting through an intermediary on our plane. The gateway incantation that was being used last night was exceptionally powerful, but raw and amateur in its execution. It was an easy task to close off the portals. But…" she looked directly at Patrick, "this voice that you heard, that is where things get strange." The team clearly wasn't following, so she spelled it out for them, "It doesn't add up. Why go through all the trouble of having a puppet cast her spells? She's obviously powerful enough to punch through on her own volition."

"Perhaps she's trapped?" Patrick hazarded a guess.

"Maybe. But the gateways last night were blood-bound. The monsters that came out could only persist as long as their victim remained alive. If the goal was to free her, this wouldn't be the way to go." Raven said plainly.

"Could her presence just be a fluke?" Robin asked.

"No, almost certainly not," Raven responded quickly, "the power sustaining that gateway spell was too much to be of this plane alone. That much was very clear."

"Alright, sounds like the best we've got for now on that front," Robin said. Raven returned to her seat and began again pouring over the tome she had set aside. "In other news, we managed to track down this Director character. He's Arthur Lynch; works for Jump City's Senator, Cynthia Chow. Bit of a shady character," he said, "Beast Boy, think you can tail him?"

"I will become the fly on the wall," Beast Boy said with a fake sensei tone. Being back to business seemed to brighten everyone's mood significantly.

"Excellent," Robin replied, "Cyborg, I assume that there's still work to be done getting the tower back to one hundred percent, after the changeover?"

"Yep," Cyborg replied immediately, "ready to get started as soon as we're done here."

"Good, Starfire, help him with the work. Raven, keep reading. Let us know the moment you find something." Raven nodded curtly. "I'll get back in touch with Bats; see if there's any other way to track the money," Robin's eyes then met Patrick's. For a moment, Patrick was sure he saw a wry smile on the boy's face. "You help her with that," he finally said.

Sneaky little shit, Patrick thought as he and Raven mustered a resigned nod.

-

They read in silence, Raven with the advanced texts, Patrick with only the most basic, translated works. She was leveraging every bit of her talents as a polyglot, tearing through page after page of ancient Sumerian. The sound of the old papyrus flapping with each page's turn was the only sound in the room. They'd been at it for hours. Hours of pure, dank, silence. The lights occasionally flickered, usually with Cyborg or Starfire coming into the intercom with a 'Sorry!', but that was the extent of voices to be heard in the living room. He had only just begun the first chapter of The Accounts of Osiris, but his eyes were already bleary and broken by the long slog through An Introduction to Demonology. His head pounded from the concentration. Finally, he tore into the silence of the room with an exasperated sigh, looking up from the book. "This is hopeless," he said.

"With that attitude, yes," Raven replied smartly. She did not even lift her eyes from the squiggles on the page.

"But seriously, what am I going to find in these books that _you_ don't already know?" Patrick challenged.

"Probably nothing. But Robin said to help, so help," she was sharper with her words this time, her eyes still affixed to the book.

"Well, my eyes need a break." Patrick sat back, rubbing his temples as he did so. "What about you? Find anything."

"Nothing... _yet_." She looked up from the book and glared at him, annoyance rang through in her voice.

Patrick shrugged it off. It was enough that she could look at him, instead of the space behind his head. He quietly got up, so as to not disturb the sulking princess of darkness, and walked towards the windows. There were a lot of fond memories in this room, at this window. The city's kaleidoscope of lights dazzled in the distance, seeming to float in the void of the night-darkened bay. It was a scene that had a soothing fondness, like an old memory that was barely hanging on. This had once been the focus for his crude meditations: Jump City in the dark of night. Hours used to melt away, lost to in his mind, gazing long across the skyline. Hello old friend, Patrick thought as he leaned up against the glass. It was cold like ice, a stark contrast to the room around him. The bay-cooled, whipping sea winds made sure that any heat in the panes were lost to its tumult.

"Shame I just can't call up mommy fearest on the ol' blood walkie-talkie... ask her what's going on," Patrick said sarcastically, looking back at Raven.

Nothing. Not even a snicker. But Raven did finally look up from her book longer than a few seconds. Patrick flinched for the oncoming lecture about remaining perfectly silent. But strangely, instead, she was frozen in deep thought. A subtle explosion of violet diamonds betrayed a dawning idea. "You... might be on to something," she said, abruptly.

"Wait, do what now?" Patrick's bewildered face replied.

"There were some scholars - lesser known - that believed vox sanguinis was a two-way street. It's a long shot, but we may be able to use your connection to probe your mother," Raven said astutely.

"Can we... maybe call it something else?" Patrick said, scrunching his face in disgust.

"Riiiight," Raven nodded sarcastically, rolling her eyes, " _Survey_ then. Use your connection to survey the demon who's been talking in your head. Better?"

"And have you ever done something like this before?" Patrick nervously asked.

"If what you're asking is, 'Will this open a gateway to Hell?' then the answer is no. Absolutely impossible. The power involved here is mundane by comparison to what's needed to do that. But... no, I have never done this before." Raven said.

It was not the confident sales pitch he was hoping for, but the gateway question was more important. "I'd be willing to try," he said, walking back to the couch, "What do I need to do?"

"Simple - in theory," Raven said coolly, "Just sit down and close your eyes."

Patrick did as he was told, letting his neck roll across the back of the couch. The relief on their strain was almost a painful sensation, yet still, relief. "Okay. Now what?"

"Now I am going to reach into your mind and guide your mind through the connection you share with your mother. What I'll need from you is to describe everything you see, exactly as you see it," she spoke calmly, like a doctor about to administer a treatment to a dying patient. The violet sheen of her eyes betrayed no trepidation for her task ahead. "Remember, demons cloak themselves in illusion and metaphor. You may not understand what you are seeing, but you must tell me how it appears to you exactly as it does. Is this something you can do?"

Patrick inhaled sharply, "Yes."

"Very well." There was an audible crackle of energy, and the famous mantra chanted, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos."

The familiar pinkish glow of his closed eyelids in a lit room suddenly changed to black. Patrick was in freefall.


	14. Chapter 13

"Relax, you're still in the tower," rang Raven's voice, "I need you to stay focused."

She was technically right. Patrick could still feel the cool leather of the couch on the back of his neck, he could still hear Raven's voice. His body had, indeed, not moved. Yet for all his rationalization, the sensation of plummeting into a blackened abyss still enveloped him like an uncomfortable glove.

"I see nothing. I'm falling into it. Just black…" he said, distracted, his body occasionally jittering.

There was the sound of a pen scratching on parchment. Raven said nothing.

"Wait, there's something coming up at me," he said, "I'm slowing down now." Patrick could feel the pit of his stomach no longer scrambling into his throat. Below a painted landscape of red was fading slowly into view. "It looks like it's… maybe on fire?"

More wordless scratching from Raven as she wrote.

There was no fire when he landed. The red was of far more devious in origin, and something Patrick had seen no shortage of over the past few weeks. Blood. A massive lake of the stuff, thick with blackened blobs of coagulation. "I'm not looking at fire, actually," Patrick said, "It's blood. A lot of it." His voice was shaken, but stoic.

Indeed it was. The lake of crimson and black expanded to nearly the extent of Patrick's sight. Off in the far, far distance, there was a clear point where the red stopped, and the blackness returned. The surface rippled and frothed with activity under the surface. "Something's moving down there," he said, walking his mental projection towards the edge of the pool.

 _"_ _But of course there is. Fresh meat is delivered daily, after all,"_ There was a new, familiar voice. It boiled over with sadistic sarcasm, just as before. His mother.

"Raven… I'm hearing her," Patrick said aloud, back in the real.

"It's okay, I hear it too," Raven replied quickly. Her voice betrayed some tension, but she was doing her level best to soothe, "Remember, nothing you're seeing right now is real."

 _"_ _Invading_ ** _my_** _mind and speaking as though I weren't present? How rude of you. Do you honestly think me a vegetable?"_ the voice ribbed.

Patrick did not rise to the bait, ignoring the voice of his mother completely as she spoke. The lake of blood was his primary concern. Chop and more froth formed with each word the demon spoke. "The lake is getting more turbulent now," Patrick said aloud.

 _"_ _Dear boy, is this how you always go about figuring things out? Bumbling about blindly? You need merely ask, and I will gladly show you what lies beneath,"_ there was a cruel, faux-materialism in her words.

Patrick signed, both in the real and in the astral, "Very well. What is in here?"

 _"_ _Oh son, I know you'll just love it,"_ the voice popped with a darkened happiness for finally being recognized.

The work began almost immediately. A gross wind whipped across the surface of the lake, spinning in, tighter and tighter, to form a narrow vortex. The disturbance soon blossomed into rose red, as the blood followed the small tornado upwards. At its apex, the color formed into a perfect sphere, suspended effortlessly in the air, growing in diameter as the need arose. It was a wicked, fast magic. In very short order, the lake was reduced to a deep crater, with a moon of glossy blood hanging overhead. A familiar scene waited for Patrick below.

Across the gulf of open space, dimly lit by an ethereal glow, massive swarms of familiar beasts crawled upon a writhing substrate of muscle and sinew. They were the same creatures from the night before, but now in a staggering number, utterly dwarfing the display in Jump City.

It was a soundless scene, but the view shook with tremors of agony. Among the swarming mass of utter, incomprehensible, black - spare red glowing eyes - Patrick could barely make out the state of the victims. Deep red of muscle and brackish, yellowy, rippling swaths of fat were all that remained on their outside. Skin and vein had been utterly stripped away. Body parts were yanked, cut, and torn lose from them as the monsters crashed in waves over them. Yet, for all this, the poor souls lived on, desperately resisting the fiends chewing on them, their mouths frozen in screams that would never come.

The immortality of their victims only seemed to spur on skittering abominations. They attacked with a viciousness that Patrick had not seen the night prior. There was a seeming eagerness to tear into the heart and lungs, to sever the windpipe; anything to indulge in the torturous dismemberment of their victims.

"Patrick, what are you seeing?" came Raven's impatient voice. In the real, Patrick's body was covered with a cold sweat from the horrors he was witnessing.

"Thousands of them," Patrick babbled incoherently.

"Focus!" Raven demanded sharply, "Thousands of what? What do you see?"

Her voice was like a booming gong, tearing Patrick back to his precarious position on the cusp of reality. It was all in his head, he kept repeating internally. "T-those monsters that attacked Jump yesterday," he finally sputtered out, "It's a slaughter. S-so many bodies..."

The disembodied voice of the demoness cackled with gleeful abandon, _"_ _You foolish child. Are you truly surprised? What did you expect lay under a lake of blood?"_

It was the laughter that finally did it. Patrick's blood boiled at her cruelty. "Who the hell are you, Lady?" he snapped.

She seemed to revel in getting under Patrick's skin, _"_ _Why, I'm shocked. You don't recognize your own mother's voice?"_

"Enough games!" Patrick shouted back, "Who are you, really?"

There was a pause. Perhaps this demon was not used to a challenging voice, perhaps she reveled in Patrick's upset. _"_ _You will know me soon enough, my sweet baby boy,"_ finally came her slithering voice, _"_ _I have a whole world of red delights, just waiting for you and your friends."  
_  
"You'll have to cut a hole through me to reach any of them," Patrick spat defiantly.

 _"_ _Oh my, quite the firebrand! How cute, just like his mother,"_ her voice came again, _"_ _Very well, son, if this is how you wish it."_ For a moment, there was nothing. The blood suspended in the air came crashing down back into the lake with nary a drop spilled. _"_ _Remember your words today. ...Remember them when your last sight on Earth is my bloodied arm through your chest, as your friends lay dying."  
_  
The world of red blacked out in front of him. A sudden sensation to gasp for air shook Patrick. His eyes burst open as his lungs greedily inhaled. There were thick rivers of steam rolling off his body as he snapped back into the real, an artifact of the exertion. But he was back. Back in the same living room in the same Titans Tower. Raven had not moved from her seated position next to him, and was watching him intently. Her hands were still extended out towards Patrick's head, but no longer crackling with black energy.


	15. Chapter 14

Heavy snoring met the sun as it crept its rays into Patrick's room. The teen was out cold, paying the price dearly for his foolhardy resistance to sleep the previous day. His lean, semi-chiseled frame was clad in black boxers and a tangled blanket. Spare the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, moving in time with the snores, nothing else was moving.

The blank landscape of his dreamless sleep was interrupted by a sharp wrap at the door. Patrick's snoring stopped with a startled gurgling sound. His eyes, still bloodshot from the day and night prior, snapped open to his room basked in the natural light of near-noon. Clothes were on the ground next to his bed. Still the black-black-black of his youth. Patrick shook the tired from his head and dressed.

Patrick's door slid open vertically to reveal a familiar, short, green, teen; frustrated in appearance. "Dude, what are you waitin' for?" exclaimed Beast Boy, "Robin wanted us like… thirty minutes ago."

"Sorry, sorry," Patrick said, slipping on his shoes – black combat boots, of course – and walking out to the hallway, "Must've forgotten to set my alarm." In truth, he had been so mired in thought last night, he hadn't even remembered going to bed. The sleepy, black-clad, teen followed Beast Boy into the living room.

An expectant team's gaze all met Patrick as he entered. The embarrassment of being last man in, and late to boot, was minor, but flushed his face all the same. With a bowed head, he mouthed a silent 'sorry' and he took an open seat on the couch, right between Cyborg and Starfire. Robin called the meeting to order.

"Alright Titans," he said authoritatively, "We've got some movement on Lynch. Beast Boy, let's hear it."

"Dude's definitely up to something shady," Beast Boy said from the couch, "Caught him leaving Chow's office at around four-o'clock. Guy switched between cars left and right, I counted at least five times. Eventually, he took me out of the city up into the foothills. Then he just… kinda vanished. I don't know any other way to describe it. One minute, I'm watching him as a hawk, then he crossed under an overpass, and… never came out from the other side. When I got down there to look for him, there was nothing. Anyway, I marked where it was on our map."

He shrugged, defeated, but having tried his best.

Robin frowned. The news was less than stellar, but it at least provided a new location to investigate. "We're going to have to be careful how we approach this. If we tip off Lynch, he'll scuttle before we can make any progress. Meanwhile, Raven, the demons stuff, any headway there?"

"I'd say so," Raven leaned in, but did not stand, "We managed to get a closer look at her domain last night, using Patrick as a focus." The team looked concerned at the two of them, spare Starfire, who appeared to be in her own, bubbly thoughts entirely. "It's... safer than it sounds, trust me," her expert words relaxed them and Raven continued, "Based on what we know about Patrick's powers, and of her realm, I believe we're dealing with a descendant, of Aeshma." She paused. This name did not help the team comprehend in the slightest. Raven seemed slightly disappointed that they did not know the details of this obscure bit of the arcane, but continued on as flatly-toned as ever, "I'll say again: Aeshma. I found the name in an ninth-century account of Hell. He is the archdemon of rage and fury, always written along with the text, 'of the bloody mace.'"

"Sounds brutal," Beast Boy chimed in.

Raven shot a look of ice at the interruption. "Yes," she said sharply. "If Aeshma is even remotely involved, we shouldn't expect what happened on Friday to stop. He thrives on massive acts of cruelty - violence, and war. More and greater carnage is always his goal."

"Do we have any idea what the plot is?" Robin asked.

"Not much. And what I do have is only broad concepts," she said, disappointed, "We can expect large population centers to be the primary target. The attack will most likely be similar in style to the attack in Jump City." She paused to let it all sink in, that they could expect this to happen again, and worse. "The only other thing I can say with any certainty is this:" she began, "It will be a very significant incursion of Hell onto our plane." The words 'very' and 'significant' seemed punctuated storm clouds of dread in her speech. She leaned back unceremoniously, having shared all she knew.

"I'll get an alert out to the JLA with everything you've just said," Robin said sternly, "Do we have any idea of who the puppet on Earth is?" He was fishing for something, anything that could be investigated with his hands, rather than dabbles in the occult.

"It could be anyone sufficiently wrought with fury," she said studiously. "So probably not The Flash," she added on with artisanal deadpan.

It was the little nudge in the right direction that the team needed. A positive vibration they could build off of. Beast Boy's snicker only further lifted spirits. Despite the grim nightmares of the subject matter, everyone managed to crack a smile at the gallows humor.

"Alright then," Robin continued, "Well it sounds like we're back at full capacity, so thank you Starfire and Cyborg for that. I know I enjoyed the hot water this morning."

"Oh, you are most welcome friends!" Starfire said exuberantly, floating up to regard her team. Everyone flinched slightly for the awkwardness that she would never, or could never feel. Her mode of speech was so boisterous compared to the way most people talked, yet it never seemed ill-intended. Always... happy, in an infectious way. It was hard not to smile empathetically for her joy for simply existing in this moment.

"Heh, heh," Robin blushed. He quickly noticed, and willed his face back to sullen, and leader-like. "Anyway. I think we need to stay on top of Jump for a while. Beast Boy, see if you can catch back up to Lynch, get past his little disappearing act this time."

"Can't fool a bloodhound!" Beast Boy squealed as he transformed on the spot into a soppy, green, old mutt; complete with long, floppy face and ears, and hideous dog breath. Adorable in its own way, but one couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't tried that the first time. Whatever the case, no one made mention of it, least of all Patrick, who still felt slightly awkward at these team meets.

"Awesome." Robin said confidently, "everyone else... do what you can, I guess. Cyborg, I want every sensor, detector, radio, microwave over - everything we have - pointed at Jump. Be ready to move at a moment's notice if we have to. That's all."

The group dispersed. Robin was almost immediately gone to his room, no doubt to contact Batman. Cyborg groaned loudly and got up, going to one of the many computer panels in the living room. He tapped away absentmindedly, still in a morning stupor, despite the morbid meeting they just had. Various beeps and tones indicated the realignment of sensors all towards Jump. The rest of the team retired to their rooms, spare Beast Boy, who was off again to find the mysterious Mr. Lynch.

-

The cooped up feeling was especially bad this time. Patrick paced frantically around in his room. Raven's new information had unintentionally revealed a part of Patrick's blood lineage. And the more he thought, the more he realized it fit like a glove. His fire, and his fury. The unconquered beast in his mind. An unquenchable appetite for destruction. They weren't merely facets of his psyche. No, they were all manifestations of a singular, biological truth. Wrath was in his vile blood, in his very chromosomes. He'd no sooner be able to vanquish his soul than it. The fight was never winnable.

"Then why did it help me?!" he sputtered, exasperated, in a mute, raspy shout. Still pacing; faster now, "Why did it let me escape?! And why was _she_ even there? She didn't even think I was a live?"

It was true. Ever since that night, in what little time Patrick had to meditate successfully, Wrath had never again been so magnanimous. It returned to its old habits, only coming when forced into the open by Patrick's will. The gold and blue had never again repeated themselves. Nor did the protective sphere save his flesh. The Wrath-fire again consumed, and again, he died a thousand burning deaths, only to wake up exhausted and beaten. Also true were the tulips on Patrick's memorial, Raven had never thought he was alive. The familiar eyes he had seen, the voice that spurred him on at the darkest hour, they were all illusions. She was never there.

The pacing seemed to calm Patrick, or allow a rhythm for his racing mind. He rationalized, and boxed away his raw emotions. Merely coping mechanism, he concluded. Raven never knew hew as alive, and she never knew he was in peril. The eyes were of his mind's own creation. And the voice? The first crack in his sanity. That was the only conclusion that made sense, thought Patrick. He inhaled a deep breath and stopped pacing mid-pivot. Wrath had only helped him to continue existing for itself, he finally decided. There was nothing noble about the blue and gold display, or the familiar name. It was merely his own corruption, seducing his mind. It could only be this, figured Patrick.

The disappointment of a rational conclusion was surprisingly overwhelming. Patrick, perhaps stupidly, had long held out hope that night of his escape from Dr. Harquest's International House of Torture was somehow significant. He wanted to believe, for so long, that in his time of dire need, his own will called out to a kindred soul for help. And Raven had responded in kind. Ugly reality clashed harshly in the face of this romanticized hogwash, leaving Patrick embarrassed for having ever held such ridiculous sentiments.

"Of course," he muttered, more quietly, calmly, collected, "why would you expect anything different?" The pain ebbed, getting pushed deeper in his mind, barely past the threshold of what he chose to perceive. It could live there now, like a pebble in his shoe. A powerful lesson against flights of fantasy.


	16. Chapter 15

Eventful mornings led to bland afternoons. Patrick had returned from his room to the living room for a bite to eat, still drowning in that cooped up feeling. Cyborg was still working on reconfiguring the tower's various sensor suites to focus on Jump.

"Almost done there, Cyborg?" Patrick asked with a smile, making his way to the kitchen.

"You know it!" the half-mechanical man boomed back, "Just one set to go."

"Nice," Patrick replied. He opened the refrigerator – it was much cleaner than the usual moldy nightmare – and set to work on a light lunch. Peanut butter and jelly; the height of Patrick's culinary expertise. He bit in hungrily, walking back over to where Cyborg was working, watching with some interest.

Cyborg's hands moved effortlessly across the keypads, never making so much as a single mistype. "So, helping Raven with more of that demon stuff?" he asked, never looking away from the computer.

Patrick swallowed his food with a loud gulp before he spoke. "I was," he said, "but I think we're officially out of my league here. She… hasn't really asked for any more help." He paused, "I was actually wondering if – when you're done – if you wanted to come with me to the city."

"Well, sure, I can, but what are we doin' there?" Cyborg looked away from the panel as the last set of sensors read out with a green status.

"Honestly?" said Patrick, "I just need to get outside for a bit. But I was also hoping to do something about… this." He motioned to his current blacker-than-black outfit with an exaggerated frown.

"Friends!" squealed Starfire, as the tan, auburn-haired, purple-clad teen lofted into the room, "Please, may I accompany you for the Hanging Out?" Her method of speech was still as bizarre as ever, with special emphasis on the 'hanging out' as though it were a great human ritual.

"Yeah, definitely," Patrick said brightly, "The more, the merrier."

"A wedding?!" Starfire gasped, "No one had told me! Who is getting married?!"

Patrick blinked blankly. "You- what? No," he said, "I mean: it'll be more fun with more people."

-

The flight into Jump was without incident. Robin and Raven had both declined their invitation, and Beast Boy was still tailing Lynch. This left just the three: Cyborg, Starfire, and Patrick. The strength of Starfire was more than enough to match Beast Boy in his pterodactyl form, and she carried Cyborg with an elegant ease. The mass of the metal man was hardly enough to even notice, it seemed. Her flight was straight and true. Right to the central city mall. When the team arrived, they were met with a gluttonous display of consumerism. Shops, stalls, and boutiques all arranged next to one another and around a central food court. All enclosed by a massive glass structure, giving the interior an airy feel, not unlike being outside, but without the elements.

People hustled and bustled about, scuttling up and down escalators, eschewing stairs. Everyone seemed to know exactly where to go, except Patrick. He stopped at the nearest map, complete with the 'YOU ARE HERE' star, and pondered. "Cyborg, where do you imagine they have something for me?"

"Dude, do I look like I would know the answer to that?" Cyborg asked, motioning to his cybernetic, but unclothed frame.

"True enough," Patrick replied, "Star, what about y-"

Patrick was unable to finish his sentence, floored by a sudden dragging sensation on his left arm. The tension and strain felt near enough to pull the bone from the socket. Wrenched around Patrick's wrist was Starfire's insane, gripping hand. She was babbling on, dragging him through the crowd, more than leading. "Here is a good place if you are in to what they call the... 'frou frou'," she said, passing a deep pink storefront of flowing dresses. "And here for if you're want to be the... 'bad ass'," she said, imitating a deeper-pitch of her voice as she spoke the words. The storefront was a typical goth outlet, not unlike one where Patrick could find the exact black-on-black he was trying to escape.

"Star, Star... please... you're hurting," Patrick groaned, "And I think we're leaving Cyborg behind.

True enough, but Cyborg did not seem to particularly mind. He was using his time to schmooze a table of young women in the food court. The blue and white metal on plastic was impossible to miss. Still, Star relented with a gasp, "I am so very sorry!"

Patrick winced as he rotated the limb around. It poped and groaned, but was no worse for wear. "Don't worry about it," he said with a smirk, "And all these shops are great, but I don't think I need a pink dress, or any more black. Is there anything... more middle-y?"

Starfire's face screwed up as she pondered the concocted word. A light bulb seemed to explode in her head. "Perhaps upstairs?" she said hopefully, immediately blazing a trail to the nearest flight of escalators.

Upstairs was scarcely better, until they reached the other end of the mall. There, hidden under all the glitz and glamour, all the flashy, hip, clothes, there was a little tailor's shop. This was where Starfire had led him. She sauntered up to an abandoned oak counter, covered with various spools of threads and fabrics. They were reds, blues, greens, and everywhere along those lines, it seemed. Some shimmered with sparkle, others more matte. Despite this explosion of colors, the rest of the room was a largely nondescript room; softly lit white walls on all sides, spared one, front-facing, wall of window There was a doorway behind the counter, leading to a blind hallway of the same milky-white walls. From there, an old face emerged. It was haggard with age, and wore a scowl. A crooked pair of glasses sat on an equally crooked nose. She had a pair of black eyes, piercing through the lenses. Her skin was a deep obsidian, remarkable in its vibrancy, despite the deep wrinkles in its surface. Upon recognizing Starfire, her look brightened substantially. "Bon! Starfire! Ca va bien? What brings you in here? Hole in your skirt?" she asked with a thick, nearly impenetrable, French accent. Now fully emerged, she no more than four feet tall, appropriately bent with her advanced stage of life.

"No Mademoiselle Carter," Starfire responded politely, "I'm here to introduce you to a friend of mine." She motioned to Patrick, standing behind the purple-clad teen.

"Oh, yes, how do you do?" the tailor said with a dismissive tone that matched her scowl of earlier. Her eyebrow cocked and lip curled, when she regarded Patrick's black ensemble.

"Well, ma'am," Patrick said nervously.

"Mademoiselle!" Snapped the old seamstress.

"Please, Mademoiselle," Starfire said, eyes sparkling with sympathetic charm, "Patrick's part of the Titans now... or was... is... I think... I... he has powers like the rest of the team."

"He doesn't look very strong," the old crow responded suspiciously.

"No, no," Starfire said, shaking her head furiously, "I assure you! He is very powerful!"

"Still in the room, guys," Patrick finally chimed in meekly.

Madmoiselle Carter scrunched her face at Patrick, only deepening the wrinkles in her old skin. "Very well. I suppose someone must save this boy from himself," she motioned, visibly disgusted, at Patrick's clothes. Each letter in her speech seemed to come out strangely. Patrick had a hard time following the 'zhis' and 'zhat' that came from French's intrusion into the English language. But, with effort, it could be deciphered. All the same, it didn't seem to matter what Patrick said, for, in a moment, the old woman was at his side, with lightning grace. She whipped out a rolling ruler and set to work, reaching around his stomach, along his sides, taking every possible seam's measurement. The ordeal went as far as her dragging out a step stool to reach the top of Patrick's back, but before it had begun, it was over. Mademoiselle was now scribbling furiously on a note pad.

"What colors are your favorite?" She asked abruptly.

"Uh... bl-blue? Blue and gold?" Patrick replied, asking a new question more than answering.

The master of her craft seemed to mark the end of her writing with a loud press of the pencil against paper. "Very well," she said, seemingly exasperated, "I will see what I can do with this. Standard order, Starfire?"

"Yes, Madmoiselle," Starfire chirped giddily, "I can't wait to see it!" She took a bewildered Patrick by the arm again, this time more gently, and led him from the store as he sputtered confused questions. "I promise, Madmoiselle Carter does the best work!" was all Starfire would respond with. Sensing it was hopeless, he followed her as she proceeded to gawk at every store front in their path back to Cyborg.

"Heya! Mission accomplished?" Cyborg asked as the two approached, sipping a soda through a bent straw.

"I... think?" Patrick responded, still confused. Cyborg eyed Patrick's lack of bags and unchanged clothes with a curious gaze, but shrugged and tore into a slice of pizza he was holding in the other hand. "I've pretty much done all I want to do," he said, "How's about we make our way back to the Tower?"

Patrick nodded in agreement, as did Star fire. But no sooner than the troupe turned their gaze to the door to leave, they were met with two younger teens boys taking swings at each other. Neither one appeared to be particularly competent fighters, but their display of faux machismo was enough to disrupt the largely peaceful food court. They scrambled between tables and patrons, obstructing one another with chairs and tables. It was mostly harmless, but a nuisance all the same. Patrick was debating intervening, but Starfire and Cyborg seemed far more resolved than him, running to the scene.

"Knock it off!" Cyborg ordered as he approached the dueling brats. Their battle dialogue was a series of grunts, curses and 'bros' interlaced with 'you don't even know's' and 'she loves me's'. It was a petulant affair of roaring hormones. A waste of the Titan's powers, thought Patrick, but he conformed with the team.

When the teens refused to heed Cyborg's demands, he and Patrick leapt in to restrain the kids in a headlock. "Easy there, kiddo," Patrick said to the bucking youth he had his arm around the neck of, "why don't we just calm down and talk this out like gentlemen?"

" _Goooooooood... cherish what time you have left with them, my son_ ," replied the young teen. But the voice was not male, not even by a long shot. It was, familiar, dark, sarcastic; his mother's voice.

Patrick's eyes widened immediately. He released the teen from the headlock only to grab the kid by the collar. The boisterous young teen's eyes were fully black, shining with a gloss like polished stone. His face contorted with an evil smile. "What the fuck did you just say?!" Patrick shouted, shaking the kid violently by the collar. With the snap of the neck from a good throttling, the kid's eyes unclouded, and the smile immediately faded, replaced with horror. The scene was now a child, being shaken violently by a super-powered teen at least three years his senior, roiling in the horror of recovering consciousness to such a scene.

"P-p-please! I didn't say anything! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" the kid pleaded, tears streaming down his face, "I'll stop fighting. I'll go home. I promise! Please!"

"Patrick, woah, easy," Cyborg said, no longer manhandling the other fighter, "We just wanted them to stop fighting, not soil themselves."

Patrick snapped back from the blast of rage. Very small, almost imperceptible rivulets of steam rose off his body. He released the kid who, without hesitation, scrambled off weeping.

"Dude, what was that all about?" Cyborg asked, walking up to Patrick, concerned more than angry.

"Sorry... it's just, that kid spoke with my mother's voice just now," Patrick said, his subsiding rage now couched behind a facade of stoicism, "Don't know what that means though, but it can't be good. C'mon, we need to get back, I need to let Raven know."

The team nodded and departed the mall, destined again for the Tower.


	17. Chapter 16

"You're certain it was her voice?" Raven asked, drawl flat and level, but still almost incredulous.

"Yes, absolutely," Patrick replied; short, certain, but friendly all the same – as best as he could muster, anyway. Which was a decent bit, considering whom he was speaking to.

No words from the astute master of the dark arts, Raven only ponders Patrick's description of events. Silent, brooding, but all the while, thinking. Her trimmed violet tufts of eyebrow furrow and slant, alternating between curious and concerned, as if enthralled by some internal back-and-forth. She floated across the living room, cutting through shafts of amber sunlight as it set over Jump City in the distance. Starfire, Patrick, Robin, and Cyborg stared on in wonder. She paced, slowly, methodically, still thinking feverishly.

"I don't get it, Rave. I thought she needed a very powerful source of rage. This was just a angsty kid. What gives?" asked Cyborg, astounding everyone with the fact that he had been paying attention in all the previous meetings.

"I-… I really don't either," Raven conceded, "More concerning: If she can so easily access our plane, why all the subterfuge? What is she waiting for?"

"What if something's stopping her?" Robin asked, "Can't magic and... uh... demon stuff, do that?"

"Some old magics, yes, but...," Raven stopped mid-sentence, a tide of realization crashed onto her face. Violet eyes wide, suspended in golden sunbeams, she mouthed the word first, then spoke it again loud enough for the others to hear, if only barely. "Augustine," she said, a silent eureka, "That's what's stopping her. Or, at least, slowing her down."

"So we've got bad guys stopping really bad guys?" Cyborg chimed in, "I thought that was our job."

"But does that mean that if we stop the... 'bad guys', then we are helping the... 'really bad guys'?" Starfire added airily.

"No matter, this is all the more reason to find the Augustine Initiative," Robin insisted, donning leadership like a tailor-made robe, "The sooner Beast Boy can give us a location and way in, the sooner we can figure out what they're doing to keep her down there."

As if spurred on by Robin's words, the elevator to the living room opened, revealing a familiar green grin of smug satisfaction. "Wassup?" Beast Boy piped with nasally confidence, strutting leisurely towards the team.

"Well?" Robin demanded, the very embodiment of impatience, tapping foot and all, "Did you find out where he goes?"

"Did I?! Man, I wish you had seen it!" Beast Boy erupted, stopping mid-strut, frantically waving his hands, "It's a madhouse down there. All sorts of people - er demons, I guess - getting worked on in one way or another. They even had a few of those big mechas from years ago! It was crazy!"

"Where is it?" Robin stayed on the point aggressively.

"Chill, chill, it was the same place I lost him before," the green teen said, "But now I know how he gets in."

"In... where?" Robin demanded, sharper, losing his patience with the glibness.

"Into his mad secret underground base, man!" Beast Boy exploded with giddiness, "He's got a car elevator and everything! Some wicked James Bond tech!"

"I bet," Robin grunted, unenthused with the childish antics, "Did you get anything on the inside?"

"Only the full schematic, ba-ba-ba-BOO-YAH!" Beast Boy chided back with a grin of pure smugness on his face. He reached into his pants and pulled out a piece of blue and silver tech, something of Cyborg's, no doubt. "This little baby got me the inside scoop on just about everything on the main server. All thanks to my main man over here! Cyborg! Give yourself a hand!" the manic teen set the device on the table and Robin plugged various cables directly into its various ports. A massive data dump of The Augustine Initiative's main operations server.

"This is perfect, Beast Boy! Absolutely incredible! Fantastic work!" Robin's mood did a full one-eighty upon seeing the sheer size of the data dump. The young gumshoe knew that the main operations server would likely have only basic facility information, likely nothing about demons or their defenses against the scourge, but it would certainly have the location of Arthur Lynch's office. From there, they could get to just about anything they needed. He immediately sifted through the files to find the "official" facility map. It had more gaps than a CIA memo sheet, but it did have exactly what the Titans needed: The Director's Office. "We move tonight," Robin said resolutely.

-

Blackout midnight, no moon in the sky. The Pacific-swept winds are ice on Patrick's face, but yield to his ever constant warmth. The team stalks the sky over the thinning suburbs as they give way to more and more wild surroundings. Plains and marshes now dot the landscape as they all fly, replacing houses and strip malls. They fly soundlessly but for the woosh of displaced wind. Everyone knew the plan, exactly what had to be done to ensure success. Cyborg: tech specialist, he would disable and suppress defenses and alarms for the facility. Starfire: muscle, she would render unconscious any persons responding to the intrusion and keep the exit clear. Beast Boy: lookout and protection, he would ensure Cyborg is unimpeded with his hacking. Robin, Patrick, and Raven: strike team, they would storm the facility to the Director's office, confront Lynch, and use his access to obtain data on the Augustine Protocol's confidential server, or servers. Simple, routine, teenage crime-fighting. Quick in, quick out. Once the intel is shared among the JLA, the Augustine Initiative will have nowhere to hide.

The arrival at the nondescript overpass in the hills was met with no sign of force. Indeed, there was nothing around for miles, or so it seemed. Beneath the team's feet, there were horrors lurking. With the casualness only achieved from being there once before, Beast Boy strolls over to an electrical junction box on the concrete wall of the overpass, opens it, and flipped a single breaker switch among several. The earth immediately responded with a churning rumble, dragging down a circular section of the road downward.

Entry to the Augustine Lair, finally. The team readied themselves as they descended.


	18. Chapter 17

Unfired weapons clattered to the polished marble ground as a cacophony of strikes hammer the Titans' welcoming party. Starfire was already hard at work rendering the team of armed guards unconscious, heavy blow after heavy blow from her dainty arms shattered their riot gear helmets and send them flying before they can even react. The facility's entrance was massive, ornate, almost cathedral in design, anointed with only the finest of luxuries. Billions went into this room alone, no doubt. But each hammer blow from Starfire sends an armored guard straight into the walls and floors, utterly demolishing the decadence. Inevitably, the final guard falls, a sharp knee to the gut and a elbow to the back of the head from the super teen clad in purple.

"Titans, remember, stay on your role!" Robin barked, and then raced off, Patrick and Raven flying close behind. The rest of the team scattered to perform their duties, just like clockwork.

-

Raven, Robin, and Patrick blast down the main corridor. From the luxuries of the main entrance, the hallways were significantly less so. In their stead, the sterile white of the facility's previous iteration. Occasional waves of guards prove no match, particularly to Raven's soul self. Ribbons of black energy cascade across the armored men, sending them flying several feet back, hard, into the wall. None moved to get back up. The trio moved on with their same brisk pace. As they rounded their first turn, Robin still leading from memory of the map, the alarm finally stopped. Now it was just the sound of Robin running full-out and the shouts of guards in the distance to keep their ears company. Patrick focused on it to drown out the billowing desire for revenge. The Director was in his grasp, soon.

"Around this corner, at the end of the hallway," Robin shouts over his shoulder to the other two. Patrick and Raven both followed as Robin pivoted on his right foot, and does a back handspring. The airborne Robin's feet made harsh contact with the exposed jaw of a soldier just then rounding the bend. The man was knocked cold before he even knew what hit him. His compatriot, second fiddle in the two-man patrol, felt the full force of the boy wonder's steel bo staff. A clear path to the office from there. The three made their way with great haste.

A door was all that stood in the way. It was metal, but hardly secured. Did they really not expect anyone to make it this far? A trap, perhaps? Patrick looked to Robin who was equally suspicious. It had been too easy. Patrick walked up to the barrier, fire in left hand, right outstretched for the handle. He made contact, turned it, and... nothing. It did what a door does. It opened to a lavish office of just - just awful taste. Mahogany everything. The rich brown swallows all other colors around it. The deep red carpets are barely noticeable, but terrible as well. This was an office decorated by a man who sorted by price and selected that which was most expensive. Greed, utter and corrupt, at its finest.

"Welcome back... Patrick," came the familiar, upsetting voice of The Director, Arthur Lynch. It came from a turned chair at the mahogany desk. The chair, to it's credit, was not of the same wood. Instead, it was a chromed, future-concept chair, with an exaggerate skeletal structure of steel and black cushion. It rotated around and Patrick found himself staring eye-to-eye with the monster himself. Beady eyes of malevolent foulness stunk Patrick's mind, and stung it to action. He willed a fireball of white heat at his right hand, but left the talking to Robin.

"Lynch!" the leader of the Titans growled, "Here's how this is going to work. You're going to step away from your desk, slowly, and lay down on the ground."

"Get a load of this fuckin' kid," Arthur snaped, "You little shits still think you can stop this? Newsflash: Waaay too late."

"What are you talking about?" Raven butted in with a sharp, irritated voice.

"Yeah, isn't that exactly your business, to stop this from happening?" Robin followed up.

Arthur smirked from the other side of the mahogany desk. The white smile was oddly charming, but only more perverse when attached to a man so unpleasant. Patrick's stomach churned at the sight. "What do you think this is? The lax security wasn't a tell? Jesus Christ, you fuckin' kids are thick," Arthur quipped sharply, "If it were any less perfect, I wouldn't bother with the monologue, but look at this!" Arthur pointed directly above where Patrick was standing. A wooden panel have opened during the conversation, revealing some sort of reflecting dish. Before Patrick could react, The Director's finger flipped a switch on a concealed handheld remote. Patrick's entire body seized up, and his fire extinguished. His body was lifted into the air, hovering a neat foot off the ground.

Black ripples of energy to his left and the glint of a bo staff to his right, Patrick saw his friends ready for action. "Let him go!" demanded Robin.

"Fuck no," Arthur laughs, "And I bet I can flip this kill switch faster than you can attack me." He got up from his unique chair and walked out from the desk. The full three-piece suit was immaculate on top to bottom, slate black and freshly pressed. Dressed to impress, dressed to kill. "You know, when she told me I should put the focus in my office and just let you kids walk in," he said, pacing back and forth, absentmindedly, "I was like, 'No fuckin' way, crazy bitch.' But she has ways of persuading. Way to make you see the right way to do things." Arthur's face contorts to a frown with wistful eyes.

"I don't understand, Arthur. Start talking sense," Robin demanded.

"How fuckin' stupid are...," Arthur sighed, exasperated, "I tell you what, let me show you." He walked back to his desk with a brisk pace, opened a drawer, and pulled out a cruel, curved, sharp knife. It glinted in the fluorescent as he handled it. Without a moment's hesitation, he plunged into his cheek. Not even a yelp of pain, the only sound was the squelch of flesh yielding to steel. A river of blood immediately met the wound, but The Director did not stop. The knife ran it's course, from cheek to bone, then inward. Smooth, deliberate motions, cold and emotionless as the blood poured down to his neat outfit, the knife traced a path under half the flesh of the face. Raven and Robin watched in horrified silence as the man proceeded to fillet the flesh off half his face. Patrick continued to persist in his state of paralysis, blank-faced as the event unfolded, though not for lack of trying. The wet sound of bloody flesh and fat striking carpet was met with Arthur saying, "Ta daaaaaaaaaaa!" He did a small jig, as if to present his new talent on an imaginary stage. Half the flesh from his face was now missing, exposing bone and fat, in a grotesque play of red, white, and yellow. "Who am I, Robin? Hahahaha! Get it?" he chucked with sinful delight.

Robin had nothing to say, but stood slackjawed at the sight. Arthur smiled again, a half smile with full skeletal teeth visible on the butchered side. "No? What if I..." he began again, _"talk like this?"_ For the second cadence, the voice was not his own. Patrick's blood cooled to ice immediately, he knew it for what it was.

Mother.


	19. Chapter 18

_"_ _Aren't you going to say something, sweetie?"_ came the alien voice of Patrick's mother through the disfigured mouth of Arthur Lynch. A rhetorical question, no doubt, Patrick was entirely unable to move, trapped in whatever confinement device Arthur had installed. _"_ _Aw, tsk,"_ she goaded. The body of Arthur Lynch moved to her every whim, accentuated with a feminine flair that did not suit the middle-aged man. Were it not for the half-missing face and the completely blacked eyes, he'd merely look flamboyant, but the macabre display of demonic power twisted the display into something sinister, brooding. He – or rather, she – looked at the trio of teens standing before her, all silent. _"_ _Oh dear, a ripple in your plans?"_ she spat with false sincerity, _"_ _What did you think you were going to find here? A way to stop my arrival? Did you really think Augustine could manage such a feat? Oh, silly, silly, children."  
_  
"What is this, Raven?" Robin asked quietly to his resident demon expert.

"Don't… know," responded the tense and agitated Raven.

 _"_ _Don't you though? My, Raven, of all the Titans, I thought you would understand most of all."_ the demoness paced slowly in her claimed body as she spoke, _"_ _Do you not recall your own father's attempts to access this plane? What was the conduit there?"_ The look of alarmed realization on the demoness' face informed more than any words from the teen demonologist ever good. _"_ _Yessss,"_ she said, her words slithering out of the deformed mouth, _"_ _You were… are… Trigon's conduit. And so too is my widdle Patrick my own."_ With confident, feminine stride, Arthur Lynch's body stepped forward towards the teens. _"_ _My own personal hole in reality to spread my influence through. Everyone he contacts is exposed to me. If they're sufficiently weak-minded, like Mr. Lynch here, I can have more fun with them."  
_  
"So this whole time, Augustine has been under your control?" Robin asked, confused, "Why? For what benefit?" His brain was firing on all cylinders to make sense of the profane display before him.

 _"_ _Goodness no, not the whole time,"_ Lynch's body says, _"_ _Only the last two years, or so. Ever since my wonderful son brought The Director into contact with my might. Don't you remember, Patrick?"_

Still paralyzed, Patrick's mind raced to recall the first time he had met The Director, Arthur Lynch: Two years ago, amid alarm bells and explosions, as the man faux-whimpered on the opposite side of an ornate mahogany desk, not unlike his present iteration. The Lynch of back then had been so quick to acquiesce, but was it ever truly his decision?

 _"_ _I knew I birthed an excellent child,"_ Lynch's body said with a false-warmth, still leisurely approaching the three teens, _"_ _I knew he would find Mommy a way out. I just never knew he'd do it so quickly, or so accidentally. To bumble into a modern day demonology initiative, complete with all the arcane tech I could ever need, and a near-limitless budget. Patrick, what can I say? You have really outdone yourself."  
_  
"What use could any of that be to a demon?" Robin interjected.

 _"_ _Very little... to most,"_ the demoness chided, _"_ _Technology alone does not punch a hole in reality. But we don't have technology alone anymore, do we?"_ Lynch's body points directly to Patrick as he stops approaching, four feet or so from the team of three. _"_ _Now,"_ said Lynch's body, _"_ _Now we have technology_ ** _and_** _a natural gateway. It's just a matter of opening the gate a little wider so Mommy can come all the way through."_ With that, Arthur's hand fliped a small switch on his handheld remote.

Immediately, Patrick's skin was boiling hot, despite his natural resistance to heat. The beam holding him change color and intensity, from a near-invisible light blue to an intense crimson. Fire, the likes of which Patrick had never felt, welled up within him, burning his insides with their intense fury. It was as though he were throwing all caution aside and summoning the full breadth of his power, fire that he never before had wielded. Yet, all the while, he was unable to move, unable to express even the slightest bit of discomfort. The fire that should come did not, remaining entirely internal.

 _"_ _And now, lady and gentlemen, my denouement!"_ Lynch's body laughed with sinister repose. Gingerly, the demoness flipped on more switch on his handheld remote.

The fire immediately released from Patrick, out of any orifice it could manage, from his fingertips, from the top of his head. Intense, white-hot, fire, ionized the air with a crackle as it emerged from the teen pyromancer. Rave and Robin shielded their eyes, but Patrick could not, witnessing every bit of the event. Everything, every last bit of the heat, ran an arcing path directly into the face of Arthur Lynch, reducing his flesh, muscle, and blood immediately to ash. He did not make a sound as he passed, perhaps from the possession, perhaps from the sheer speed of the vaporization. All now the remained of the half-faced Arthur Lynch is a blackened skeleton, suspended in ribbons of heat and energy.

But the skeleton did not last, not in its human form, at least. It cracked and buckled, shattering and regrowing, morphing rapidly. The near-six-foot-tall armature stretched itself skyward, easily surpassing nine feet in its new form, bulking out in all directions. From the skull, exaggerated curled horns began to poke out, coiling over themselves like that of a ram's. The legs snapped and repositioned, toes merged, and the ankle ascended, leaving the skeleton to walk on newly formed hooves. The spine elongates at the tailbone, stretching and splitting into new vertebrae, slowly forming a massive tail. Marrow dripped and sizzled as it fell to the smoldering spot of carpet where the mutilated skeleton now stood on its own volition.

Putrid growths of yellow fat and red muscle slowly started to span across the newly modified body. Each piece oozes and bubbles from the heat, dripping off in massive chunks, only to be replaced by yet more proto-flesh. Veins slowly snake across the growing structure of meat and bone, organs developed to fill the chest cavity and gut. As more and more was added, the incredibly tall chimera began to take shape. Womanly, if only barely, but with the features of a dragon, and features of a ram. Spikes of bone protruding all along the spine down to the tail, massive claws on sinewy arms, shapely legs that bent painfully to facilitate the hooves. Skin had not yet formed, leaving her sickly pinkish red. Yet, there she was: Patrick's mother, in all her nightmarish, earthly glory, dripping with blood and boiling fat.

Somewhere in the process, the device suspending Patrick in the air stopped functioning, releasing him to the ground. He staggered to his feet, finally able to express his pure disgust at the scene. "It was you all along," he sputtered, "The fire in my mind, the source of my power… that was just you?"

 _"_ _Very clever, child,"_ Patrick's Mother cooed with faux-approval, _"_ _Yes, I was that which you sought to control, the raging fire forever on your periphery. Perhaps seeing me now, you understand why you never could truly bend the flame to your will."  
_  
"Then why help me escape here the first time?!" Patrick demanded frantically, recalling the blue-and-gold fire of his mind, what had granted him his freedom a month or two ago.

 _"_ _Why, to get all you back here at the same time, my dear,"_ Patrick's Mother responded matter-of-factly, _"_ _What good is one dead Titan when I can eradicate all six for the mere cost of waiting?"  
_  
The floor fell out from under Patrick as he listened. It was all planned. His capture, his escape, his recruitment of the Titans to help, everything – exactly to her plan. Their pitiful attempts to stop her merely played them right into her hands. She had orchestrated everything perfectly, down to predicting where Patrick would be standing when the team came for Lynch.

 _"_ _Clairvoyance has its perks, wouldn't you say, son?"_ the demon asked facetiously, _"Now, witness Aeshma."_

"We need to go… now," came Raven's impatient voice. It was strained, tinged with distress, not her typical mode of speech. Robin and Patrick knew good advice when they heard it. Without another word, the three immediately bolted from the office, back into the hallway, back towards the other three Titans.

The operation had failed miserably, they had unleashed hell onto Earth.


	20. Chapter 19

"How did we not know about this, Raven?!" Robin lamented, half accusatorily, as he sprinted ahead of Patrick and Raven, the three bolting as fast as they could move back to the rest of the team.

"My mother knew everything we did," Patrick jumped in to defend Raven before she could even speak, "She made sure we didn't know, not until we couldn't stop her."

"I hope you're wrong about that," Robin insisted, "for all our sakes." The team continued to sprint and fly through the hall, back to the entrance of the complex.

-

The hallways were empty on the way back. No show of force was necessary now, the trap had already been sprung. The main entrance hall had the three other Titans, Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy, waiting on their return.

"Dudes! What took you so long?!" Beast Boy shouted as soon as they emerged into the room.

"Yeah, power readings just went all sorts of crazy, we need to get out of here," Cyborg concurred.

"Don't have to tell me twice. Titans! Go!" Robin commanded. All six team members made a straight sprint towards the elevator through a path littered with unconscious guards, compliments of Starfire. But upon arrival at the elevator door, panic takes over. Nothing works. The buttons are nonresponsive, even to Cyborg's attempts to brute-force hack. Power had been completely cut to the only way out. They were trapped.

The click clack of hooves on marble added further to the dread. They sounded reminiscent of high heels, but thuded with a deeper bass than any pair Patrick had ever heard. Each thudding clack of her footfalls brought the demoness further into the main entrance hall.

"Dude, what the hell is that thing?!" Beast Boy exclaimed in reviled horror.

"That's… my mom…" Patrick replied with ashamed deadpan.

"She got out?!" Beast Boy responded incredulously, voice cracking from shock, "I thought we were trying to keep her in Hell!"

The demon chimera laughs heartily, her sinister cackle rife with malice. _"_ _Naïve children. I_ ** _am_** _Aeshma, your machinations are irrelevant. You can no sooner prevent my coming than you can prevent the changing of the seasons."_ She takes slow, deliberate steps towards the team. The six Titans get out from the elevator and assume combat positions, ready for Robin's order.

And so it comes. "Titans! Go!" the leader of the team shouts. And with that command, each member lets loose with their heaviest barrage. Starfire and Cyborg with starbolt and sonic cannon, Raven and Robin with soul self and an array of explosive bird-erangs. Beast Boy had taken the form of a Pterodactyl, attempting to grab up any heavy object and drop it on the woman.

Each member was doing their level best to dispatch the abomination, but Patrick, he was unable to summon even the smallest amount of fire. It was just as it had been in the holding beam from earlier: the fire would boil and rage internally, but not manifest at his hands under any command. No matter how hard he called for it, nothing would come. Perhaps it did not matter, the rest of the team had just thrown out a lethal amount of damage.

As the dust settled from the first barrage, the figure before the team was no crippled and shattered. Whole limbs had been blown clean off from the various explosive forces and sheer torsion. Massive holes had opened in her torso, granting full view through the body, compliments of Cyborg's cannon. The demon hobbled to its right knee in a pool of blood and shredded organs, left leg having been blown completely off. But then, Patrick felt it again.

Just as before, the intense fire within him forced its way out, running the same arcing path to the abomination. Of its own volition, he fed the beast more and more fire. Missing limbs crackled and contorted from the remaining body parts, filling voids with sizzling flesh and boiling blood.

 _"_ _Ahh, thank you, my son,"_ Aeshma said, wickedly delighted with the unfolding of events. She returned to her hooved feet and started again, slowly walking towards the team. Click, clack, click, clack.

"Patrick, what was that?!" Robin demanded frantically.

"I don't know. I-I-I can't control my fire anymore," Patrick scrambled to explain, eyes fixed on the approaching monstrosity.

 _"_ ** _My_** _fire, son. Mine,"_ Aeshma sharply corrected, _"_ _Only on loan to you until my arrival."_ She smiled with a nasty mouth of sharpened, bloodied teeth. _"_ _And now that I am here, I will be taking it back."  
_  
Patrick looked desperately to the Titans, but was met only with confused and alarmed looks, until his gaze finally rested on the familiar violet eyes of Raven. Her face was unnaturally emotional for her stoic norm, twisted into a profound sadness. She looked directly at the young half-man, half-demon, with pain overflowing from every bit of her expression. "She's still transmitting through you," she said finally to a very confused and alarmed Patrick.

"What?" Patrick responded dumbly.

"Her body's not all the way ready," Raven answered, "She's not all the way here yet."

"What good does that do for us if she's still impossible to kill?" Cyborg snarked.

Raven was utterly silent to the question. Her eyes were still locked on Patrick's, still overflowing with profound agony. Actual tears welled up in her eyes. She didn't need to say anything, Patrick knew what she meant. "She still needs me alive to get through," he said plainly, defeated. He sighed and looked down on the ground. Among the piles of unconscious guards, there were plenty of firearms left. Patrick reached down and picked the nearest to him up.

"Woah, woah, woah now," Robin immediately said, "There's got to be another way to get through this."

"Yes," Starfire agreed; bubbly, but alarmed, "There is always another option."

Patrick ignored the words and placed the barrel of the rifle into his mouth. Aeshma screeched in immediate protest, trying in vain to will her incomplete body towards the rebelling teen. An unforeseen occurrence in her millennia-long plan for freedom. But it was a pointless display of rage. Her hobbled, still developing body would not be fast enough to reach him in time, Patrick knew this. He glanced over to his friends. All five of them were watching him exclusively, faces full of concerned anguish. Four of the five wished desperately for him to stop, but one remained perfectly silent. After all, of the other Titans, Raven alone understood what had to be done, and why it had to be done. Each moment spent trying to figure out an alternative was a moment closer to hell on earth. Deep breaths. Time slows as Patrick reaches down for the trigger. It would be over soon. Everything would be over with it, but at least his friends would survive, and with them, the world. He would end it… wordlessly.

 _ **The trigger pulls. White flash. A good death.**_


	21. Epilogue

In the halls of Titan Tower, on one of the lower levels, the stone monument to the fallen has a permanent addition. Once erected in error, it now stands in perpetuity to honor a martyr. Patrick soldiers on, emblazoned in stone. At the base, a strange bundle of blue and gold cloth.

-

"Good morning Sam," came the crackled and ancient voice of Cliff as he rounded the bend to his favorite headstone, "Did we have another visitor in the night? More tulips for- well now, who's this?" Cliff stopped mid-sentence. The same cheaply-made tombstone for Samantha Garrison, once isolated, now stood with a companion. An equally nondescript tombstone, identical to Sam's in every way but for the words. "People don't tell me anything anymore, it seems," he mumbled, rasping his fingers through the white stubble on his chin. He leaned in closer to read the epitaph.

"Here lies Patrick Garrison," he read, stopping at the last name and looking at the stone to the right of it, Sam's, before continuing to read, "Some happy years, of happy birth, were spent by me with friends on earth. Although I'm gone to worlds unknown, I hope to meet you all again."

Cliff looked at the two stones, arranged as close as they could be without sharing a plot. At the base of both, each bore a single, blue, dew-kissed, tulip.


End file.
